even the backward vocals

I got the album Bitter Tea by The Fiery Furnaces last week. I'd had most of the songs on my computer and thought a few of them sounded amazing, but now that I have the album I adore the whole thing. I have to share one song with you particularly. It is called Benton Harbor Blues.

I will tell you why I like it:
I love the weird, clackety beginning, that also reminds me of one of my other favorite summer songs from 3 years ago;
I love how it just stops;
then starts
stops
then I
oh my.
I love the strong thwacks, and whatever they're thwacking against;
I love the
whatever is happening underneath, groove;
Then it gets insane, which is almost not ok until the happy weird clunky carnival music comes in;
then it gets all doozy and weirder
then quits, goes back to...

I can't do this the whole song, obviously.

Though I can say that I have never been more in love with a woman's voice than with Eleanor's. Yes, even counting PJ Harvey; even counting young Liz Phair; even counting Fiona Apple hitting an emotional low; what about Billie Holliday and Nina Simone and other amazing people I am now slighting I DON'T KNOW OK BUT ELEANOR IS AWESOME.

What I am saying, is that this song is so weird, there's a non-weird short version that you all could like easier, and the only reason maybe I didn't like it easier is because I'm weird? and also this one came first on the album, so discovering the beautiful base melody, that easygoing thing, while driving along the beautiful tree-lined High Street here in Salem, on a sunny day, knowing I'm leaving it soon...that all helped.

What I am saying, take two: I love every weird thing this song does, and every non-weird thing. I savor every part I can hear. And there is so, so much to hear!

This song makes me so happy. I hope you like it, at least a bit!

trying to find a decent place to live in new york is making me want to cry

helllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllpppppppp

Nothing

This afternoon I drove home to Salem after having spent several days in Portland, doing things, or not doing things but not feeling bad about that because I was Not Doing Things, with my boyfriend rather than the kind of Not Doing Things that happens alone.

When I came home, there was a fire truck and ambulance in my apartment parking lot, and though no one seemed frantic or intense I had the brief thought that I somehow burned down my apartment, in perhaps a uniquely slow-burning fire taking 4 days to actually blaze, but no, my landlord explained it was just a man with recurrent health problems who does not seem to be near death.
Anyway, it all felt very quiet somehow. It's weird, a fire truck and ambulance at your apartment complex making you feel more like nothing will happen today than you felt before, but that's what it was like.


I was feeling bad about how I've spent my day, ashamed of my laziness or whatever, because I want to be a person who gets things done, who feels proactive and in-control.
But, then, I thought maybe in life it's better to be happy with your decisions once in awhile. So:
For hours now I have been fooling around on the internet, listening to music, drinking beer and reading a new book; sitting on my ass, in my dark cave of an apartment!
Soon I will watch a television show.
I might have to leave the house to get some ice cream or a smoothie, but outside of that I do not see myself going out there. I detest warmth.

please, please please, use the phrase "something about llamas in the Pyranees" whenever you possibly can

Sometimes I read the Salon advice column, and I can't really pinpoint why. Advice column reading feels like...like horoscope reading, or soap opera viewing, there's something unsavory about it, something gossipy and voyeuristic and cheesy, OH IT IS LIKE REALITY TELEVISION, a little. Yeah: my interest in both comes from pretty much the same place, a curiosity about other people and how they live, and what other people think is the right way to live in the world...the responses, see, fascinate me as much/no, more than the advisee's letters.

This is a lot of preamble for what I actually want to share with you. But I've still got a ways to go...ok, so this one letter, at the salon site, is insane, very dramatic, very obviously fake or anyhow altered from the base reality of whatever letterwriter's life story is. Then the advice guy answered, and his answer was kind of ok, though not so awesome that I am coming here to share THAT with you, and wow, it's pretty retarded that I am writing this entry for the purpose I do have anyway...
But ok! To come to the point!: (<---a new feat of punctuation magic!) People who read the salon advice column also write in, themselves, to talk about what they thought of the letter and advice! Twerps! But, I read that too sometimes, because it's the same thing---people talking about how they think people should live in the world, basically.

This entry is so fucking pointless, and I keep wanting to tell you that, every other sentence, yet I cannot stifle the compulsion to write it.
ok! so! If you will, read the original letter, and now read this.

I cannot tell if that person is serious or not. If serious, yikesaroo and my mind is blown; if not, oh, anon has won my heart forevermore.

now I am official

TADA

last thoughts on student teaching (on this blog)

I thought I'd gotten tough, but man I am missing some children right now real hard. They're kind of ok, the kids.

I had a really hard time not editing that to make it a Who quote.
Every day, in every way, I'm getting less annoying?

I didn't get much of a chance to say bye to my practicum kids, just the main student-teaching ones. I hugged all those, multiple times, and one cried. I nearly cried, there, hugging the small children goodbye forever. Soooo not tough.

I wasn't that professional today, feels like. First there was the talent show (second in a week). Dearie jesus, those talent shows. Huh, I never wrote here about the horrifying talent shows. Too late now, old news for me, no blogging thrill. But yeah, I tried to be teacherly, but kept feeling how not-teacher I am, rolling my eyes at god songs and sharing "oh my god this is terrible" smiles of complicity with seven year olds. Then, I wrote something in trouble kid's autograph book about how I hope he turns into as wonderful a person as I think he will, which, I mean, a) it implies I have doubts about this eventuality, and b) implies he's not a wonderful person now, and c) what the fuck, he's a first grader, how can he understand this?
At least I am free and clear of parent wrath at this point.
THEN I wrote in angry practicum adorable boy's autograph book, when I happened to go outside right when they had to come back in the building and he ran up to me (awwwww!), ok I wrote to him that he was one of my favorites. I wrote that, in his book. I thought about saying "the favorite" and man, what kind of teacher pulls that?

A student teacher! So it's ok. Just, you know. Not next year.

I would like to share with you an amazing book. It is called Who Needs Donuts?
Now, a lot of children's books, they have sort of allegories going, parables. Don't lie. Be kind to others. Tolerate and appreciate differences. Go to the dentist.

So Who Needs Donuts, it's interesting though in the children's book field, because it is pretty clearly a parable about drugs and/or addiction.

I am going to scan pictures for you. Ok wait here.

So, like, here is the hero of our story, little Sam:



He really likes donuts.


He leaves his home at the beginning, not because he has problems there, no he has a cushy life, but he wants donuts. He's got a hole in his heart you guys, the size of a donut, his eyes are donuts. Donut is so, so clearly his crack.

I was going to give this book to my supervising teacher as a goodbye, along with another I knew she'd like. I love this book so much. But then I'm all, huh the drug thing is really obvious. Now, the moral (SPOILER) of the story seems to be that, like, donuts are great and all, they have their place, but love is better, and being a donut crack fiend is a lonely road, kids. Still, even with that, the parents in Dallas...I don't know. Risky.
Oh also, in the book little Sam runs off with an insane-eyed donut pusherman (literally, he pushes [and/or pulls] a wagon filled with donuts, he's all, "little boy, come enjoy donuts with me"), and this is not a bad thing for Sam. He runs off with donut pusherman, and the bummer thing is that eventually the pusherman falls in love with a pusherwoman and LEAVES, not that like they lose their clothes and arms to the donut habit and commit horrific crimes. No no.
So, that's a problem. Except for being great.

So, there's the not entirely negative drug allusions, the talking with strangers is ok message, and then also the book's illustrations are crazy detailed. It's great for close reading, but not for read alouds, and not for first graders so much.

Look at the radicalness of these illustrations. Ok, first scan, the whole page:




Now, a detail, from the upper left area:




MOW, you guys! So many superb, dorky details THAT I HAVEN'T EVEN FOUND YET. eeeeeee

I was going to write a couple things in here over the past week and didn't get around. One was about how I was in a supermarket, talking to a friend over the phone about sex and death among other things, and it felt really jarring, that I was there, but also pretty much right. The supermarket is kind of the perfect environment in which to talk about death making you nervous, because of the demented ordinariness of the supermarket. And, right, that's the crazy thing about death?

So I didn't know how to make that an entry, and it still sounds weird in the not cool way, huh?

Then the other thing, it's easy, alls it was was:
Incredibly, sometimes I forget that a peacock lives at a house on my way to work. Then some morning he'll come out to the street to watch the cars go by.

I have 4 more days at that place, that school.

Every now and then, I have been wanting to yell out CALL THE POLICE, as a catchphrase, only I knew I had no idea how to explain.

I just spent far too long searching for this blog entry, which has haunted me for over a year now:

I had nothing more to go on than "CALL THE POLICE" "bear" and "birthday". Yes, this blog also has posts concerning bears, and birthdays.



That I finally found that post proves the internet is magic.

evidence #807p that newspapers will/should die

"It's a bit dangerous, camp," Mr. Wainwright said recently in a Dutch gay magazine whose title cannot be printed in these pages.

PRINT THE SWEAR WORDS, YOU GODDAMN FUCKING PRINCESS.
Few things annoy me more than coy traditionalism. I think a lot of what's wrong with our society has to do with squemishness about swear words.