11.23.05 404 Paper Towels Not Found

NP: "Break The Empress Crown" – Death Vessel
NR: And yet ANOTHER New Yorker. But I'm glad I went back to this one from August... It has a great Kinky Friedman article. Kinky for Governor!



Saw Death Vessel. Didn't know what to expect, and I was still kinda confused. Just one guy. I expected a four or five piece band, i would have thought. A lot of people are going to mention Neil Young when talking about Death Vessel, or even Devendra Banhart or Ariel Pink, but... I think those folks would be way off the mark.

Incredible String Band, Emmylou Harris, and Lindsay Buckingham would all be better starting points. In fact, you triangulate those three, and I think you're pretty close to homing in on Death Vessel.



11.19.05 “I’m on Or-kord Street. One block past Allen. Or-kord. Yeah… I’m on Orchard.”

NP: "Busy Doing Nothing" – Love Is All
NP: "Turn The Radio Off" – Love Is All
NR: Another New Yorker. Sheesh.



Went to go see Love Is All last night. A fairly interesting band. A weird mixture of some Madness, some Essential Logic, the second Strokes album, early Sugarcubes. But all played in a juvenile fashion. Which isn't to say naive, and isn't to see twee, and isn't to say amateur.

The lead singer is the kind of girl that every girl thinks every guy SHOULD have a crush on. (not that they’re necessarily wrong, but that’s what they think.)

The strange thing for me was that the slow songs were the real highlights. There's a sublime beauty to the horns, glockenspiel, keyboards, percussion, backing vocals... Everybody else is going to focus on the fast dancy pop songs. But the gems are the slow songs.

Not the best parallel (because "Crash" is really maybe the best pop song ever [except not in the awful version with a guitar solo at the end of it as on the "Dumb and Dumber" soundtrack, but the original 2:32 single version]), but I'm reminded of The Primitives. Everybody focused on "Crash" and missed out on "Thru The Flowers". Close Lobsters come to mind, as well. Everybody thinks about the quirky pop songs, but the pretty songs like "In Spite Of These Times" are where the strongest songwriting lies.

I've posted both a fast and slow Love Is All song up above.



11.18.05 Nice Comments

NP: "Fake Tales Of San Francisco" – Arctic Monkeys
NR: "An Autumn Story" - Tommaso Landolfi



A listing found while searching for a book on Amazon. Nice Comments.

------

Seller: prospero@mind.net (Safe buying guarantee)

Rating: 96% positive ratings over the past twelve months (726 ratings). Seller has 2068 lifetime ratings.

Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days; Ships from OR, United States. Expedited shipping available. International shipping available.

See shipping rates

Comments: NF/NF DJ, Dust jacket over soft cover. Slight cock, minor rubs on dj, clean, tight, crisp.



11.15.05 "It’s not a dancefloor, it’s a candy store"

NP: "A Joy" – Four Tet
NR: "A Different Drummer" - William Kelley.



the foreward (by the author Virgilio Pinera, in translation) to Cold Tales:

------

As these are heated times, these Cold Tales should, I think, come in handy. As soon as he faces them, the reader will find that their coldness is deceptive, that they are very hot, that the author himself is within the oven, and that, like his fellow men, his body and soul blaze bright in an inferno of his own devising.

The tales are cold because they limit themselves to the hard facts. The author maintains that life neither rewards nor punishes, neither condemns nor saves; or, to be more exact, does not distinguish these complicated categories. He can only say that he lives, that he is not obliged to judge his own acts, to give them any significance whatsoever, to expect vindication at the end of his days. Instead, full of enthusiasm, we let the pen run freely. Soon, the words, the letters run together, become confused; in the end, we understand nothing, we revert to infancy, we are like children, their mouths stuffed with candy. And then, a mysterious babbling, spontaneous and noisy, bursts forth:

ba, ba, ba, ba . . . .



11.11.05 “Charles! Charles! Charles, you came back from the dead.”

NP: nuthin.
NR: still New Yorkers.



it is getting frustrating for me to watch so many bad players making money. i need to really play a shit-ton more of poker. really think i'm going to start going to RRRR during the day as much as i can, just to get in the hours.

i went to LLLL last night after work. until 6 AM (they close at 6). won $55. was up $150 at one point, but i get QQ on the button on a five-handed table. limp limp to me. i raise to $12. call call. raise to $50 (and i thought it was a straddle, but i realize now it was a limp re-raise.). next guy folds. i got to $150. fold fold. back to the other guy and he goes all-in and covers me. i think about it for a minute. he says "can i show my cards? am i allowed to show my cards and not have them be ruled dead. what's the rule here?" everybody says it's OK. he shows me AA. i thank him and turn over QQ and fold. everybody looks at him like he's crazy. he says he's happy to make $175 bucks with AA and not have any risk of losing it. i had $250 behind, and everybody's kinda looking at me like i'm crazy for folding when i'm in for $150, but... another $250 to win $575... it just doesn't make sense.

it's an easy game there, though. i feel like i can beat it consistently.







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