Saturday, February 28, 2004
Rec'd a piece of spam that I initially thought was an cryptic response to my Mountain Goats post. Rather than word salad, it's a bunch of proverbs, beginning:"A critic is a reader who ruminates. Thus, he should have more than one stomach." The rest is about Windows XP.
You'll excuse me if one of the purposes of the blog is to note down what I have and haven't accomplished. This isn't entirely diaristic, since there are more than a couple of likely readers who know what I'm supposed to be doing, and claim that I am. As I said, off diss until I get through a submittable draft of the Farber piece; aiming for Tuesday. Much of it is drafted, but badly; organization has been a bear. After several false starts today, figured out how to arrange and connect sections on: MF and auteruism, misreading of MF as anti-theoretical, and termite/white-elephant. Tomorrow, I hope to polish the last of those, and move on to the introduction to Negative Space and the (ultimately unstable) titular notion. That moves me into the paintings.
Otherwise, only consumption to report. Did some of my work at a cafe in La Canada/Flintridge (where's my tilde?), though I actually wrote more after coming home, so I could make one of my seasonal stops at Foothill Records, a collectorish but randomly priced store run a frazzled but affable lady who basically buys up the stock of other independent stores in So Cal that are closing. (Also seems to co-run an indie soundtrack label called Citadel.) The site doesn't have their hours, which are: Wed-Sat 2-7, in case you're in the area. NB: Cash only. (At least, no credit/debit card processor; I've never tried a check.) Again, not dead cheap, but cheap enough; what I brought home forms a strange enough list to seem worth posting (don't worry, I won't do this often):
vinyl:
Original Cast Recording What Makes Sammy Run?
Morricone's soundtrack to Battle of Algiers
OCT, The Grass Harp (Elmslie lyrics, Brainard cover -- this is a dupe that I'll give to someone who will value it)
OCT, Jingle Jangle (no idea, but the cast includes persons working under the names Allied Carpets, Capital Radio, and Vauxhall Astra)
Nadine Expert "I Did With The Rock 'n' Roll" [sic] (French 12")
Gina Lamour "The Continental"/"I'm Gonna File My Claim" (ditto)
Carole Simpson, All About Carole (never heard of her, cabaretish record with unfamiliar songs -- I can't really pass up "You Forgot Your Gloves" for $4)
7"
Peter Lawford, "Two Ladies In The Shade of the Banana Tree" (from House of Flowers
(couldn't justify $9 for Roxy Music's "Trash," despite gorgeous sleeve)
CDs
Soundtrack, Jarman's Jubilee
v/a Shake Your Wicked Knees: Classic Piano Rags, Blues & Stomps 1928-43
Blossom Dearie Give Him The Ooh-La-La
A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry with Charlie Mingus (though I can't tell if there's actually any poetry on it)
Serge Gainsbourg Du Jazz Dans Le Ravin
DVDs
Blackmail and Easy Virtue (early UK Hitchcock twofer, the latter silent, the former the first British talkie)
The Business of Strangers (kind of meant to see it, just b/c I like Stockard Channing)
All this cost less than you probably fear, though I'm only saying this out of defensiveness.
Going to watch about 1/2 hr. of the last item and proceed to Neko Case/Kelly Hogan/Carolyn Mark. I didn't get assigned the Weekly pick on this, and I already had a Dolly/Linda/Emmylou thing sketched out in my head.
You call that content?
You'll excuse me if one of the purposes of the blog is to note down what I have and haven't accomplished. This isn't entirely diaristic, since there are more than a couple of likely readers who know what I'm supposed to be doing, and claim that I am. As I said, off diss until I get through a submittable draft of the Farber piece; aiming for Tuesday. Much of it is drafted, but badly; organization has been a bear. After several false starts today, figured out how to arrange and connect sections on: MF and auteruism, misreading of MF as anti-theoretical, and termite/white-elephant. Tomorrow, I hope to polish the last of those, and move on to the introduction to Negative Space and the (ultimately unstable) titular notion. That moves me into the paintings.
Otherwise, only consumption to report. Did some of my work at a cafe in La Canada/Flintridge (where's my tilde?), though I actually wrote more after coming home, so I could make one of my seasonal stops at Foothill Records, a collectorish but randomly priced store run a frazzled but affable lady who basically buys up the stock of other independent stores in So Cal that are closing. (Also seems to co-run an indie soundtrack label called Citadel.) The site doesn't have their hours, which are: Wed-Sat 2-7, in case you're in the area. NB: Cash only. (At least, no credit/debit card processor; I've never tried a check.) Again, not dead cheap, but cheap enough; what I brought home forms a strange enough list to seem worth posting (don't worry, I won't do this often):
vinyl:
Original Cast Recording What Makes Sammy Run?
Morricone's soundtrack to Battle of Algiers
OCT, The Grass Harp (Elmslie lyrics, Brainard cover -- this is a dupe that I'll give to someone who will value it)
OCT, Jingle Jangle (no idea, but the cast includes persons working under the names Allied Carpets, Capital Radio, and Vauxhall Astra)
Nadine Expert "I Did With The Rock 'n' Roll" [sic] (French 12")
Gina Lamour "The Continental"/"I'm Gonna File My Claim" (ditto)
Carole Simpson, All About Carole (never heard of her, cabaretish record with unfamiliar songs -- I can't really pass up "You Forgot Your Gloves" for $4)
7"
Peter Lawford, "Two Ladies In The Shade of the Banana Tree" (from House of Flowers
(couldn't justify $9 for Roxy Music's "Trash," despite gorgeous sleeve)
CDs
Soundtrack, Jarman's Jubilee
v/a Shake Your Wicked Knees: Classic Piano Rags, Blues & Stomps 1928-43
Blossom Dearie Give Him The Ooh-La-La
A Modern Jazz Symposium of Music and Poetry with Charlie Mingus (though I can't tell if there's actually any poetry on it)
Serge Gainsbourg Du Jazz Dans Le Ravin
DVDs
Blackmail and Easy Virtue (early UK Hitchcock twofer, the latter silent, the former the first British talkie)
The Business of Strangers (kind of meant to see it, just b/c I like Stockard Channing)
All this cost less than you probably fear, though I'm only saying this out of defensiveness.
Going to watch about 1/2 hr. of the last item and proceed to Neko Case/Kelly Hogan/Carolyn Mark. I didn't get assigned the Weekly pick on this, and I already had a Dolly/Linda/Emmylou thing sketched out in my head.
You call that content?
