Emma Peel’s Neighborhood

Here is my favorite Vic Chesnutt memory: The first time I ever saw Vic in concert, I was very surprised to notice that we were wearing identical shirts.  I'm not talking about the same R.E.M. concert tee or something like that; I'm talking about the same dark blue long-sleeved button-up collared shirt with thin white lines criss-crossing across it.  The chances of two people wearing that shirt on the same night at the same venue...well, I don't really know what the chances were.  I'd say very small.  Later on in the same evening, he sang "Gravity of the Situation" and I cried like a stupid fucking baby.

It's been a weird year. I put together my photo "yearbook" in iPhoto yesterday and titled it: The Waiting Area; 2009 never happened. Because that's what this year has felt like. Limbo. I don't know if this feeling is specific to the year - will things suddenly start moving again when I peel open this year's wall calendar from my uncle? Probably not. But that's what we always hope for, right? That the new year will change something, and we can simply leave behind the things we don't want.

Picture 22

But despite its weirdness, things of course did happen in 2009 (and will presumably continue to do so for the next week or so...) Here are some of my favorites:

1. President Barack Obama. Although I'm a bit non-plussed with the Copenhagen agreement, I am still SO GLAD he got elected. I trust him to make good decisions even if I may not agree 100% of the time, and it has been a long time since I trusted a president. I think I felt pretty good about Jimmy Carter when I was 6.
2. Expanded unemployment benefits. If this money weren't available I would likely be homeless by now. That may sound a bit dramatic, but I have now joined the ranks of those just a couple of steps from financial disaster, and once you're on that ledge it's easy to slip off of it.
3. Infinite Summer. I joined the ranks of David Foster Wallace fans who read or re-read Infinite Jest over the summer. I'm glad I finally read it, but it really needs a 2nd or 3rd reading...
4. I went to San Francisco and finally met Patty, Laurel, Deborah, and karen. It felt like I've known them for years! I'm still kind of amazed by the connections I've made through Vox. It doesn't seem to happen anywhere else on the interwebs...
5. My cousin bought a lake house. It's more of a "cabin" really... but it is a place I can stay on Lake Coeur d'Alene in the summertime for free.
   
6. The birth of anemone. I don't really know where it will go at this point, but it has been an adventure planting the seed.
7. I've made progress on my memoir and other writing projects. Not nearly as much progress as I wanted to make... but everything slows down in Limbo.
8. I'm getting used to a healthier, simpler lifestyle. More cooking, less eating out, and simpler meals to boot. Less compulsive buying, or spending money on things like haircuts. It's really kind of nice.
   
9. I was able to wean myself off antidepressants without major setbacks.

Here are a few spreads from my "yearbook"...

Picture 27

Picture 26

Picture 25

Picture 24

Picture 23

Nothing reminds you of all your weird single-person-who-lives-alone quirks like having a guest for an extended period of time. Kelli's here for the holidays and I pity her having to deal with me. I sing. A lot.

Every once in awhile I remember that someone else is here and I feel like this:

I've read so many series books I think I have half of the formula.

Copyright: University of Minnesota 1992

The story takes place in a pastoral and picturesque small town along a large body of water, near the mountains, or along a railway line, or all three... usually along the rural Eastern Seaboard.  OR The story takes place at a boarding school.

There is a group of very nice girls.  There is another group of girls, who aren't very nice at all.  These two groups are always at odds with each other, and there is always one especially difficult girl but the nice girls always win out and usually manage to convert one or more of the mean girls to the "better way" in the process.  If the story takes place at boarding school, there is always one old bitter hag of a teacher that will play prominently in the story.

There is a group of boys, made up of the brothers of the nice girls and some of the other nice boys from town.  There is always one joke of a boy that no one likes but is always included in the activities to serve as comic relief and the boys are always playing tricks on him or teasing him mercilessly.  The dolt always redeems himself to the group in some way by showing he's a pretty good guy when he's not being such a lame duck.

These girls and boys are always very civic minded and usually stage some kind of charity event that is threatened in some way, but always comes off well and produces whatever end was desired.

The parents are always minor characters, but 9 times out 10 they appear as kind, loving, patient and understanding friends and confidants.

There is always one adult that the kids love and admire and is their trusty "Go To Guy (Girl)".  This person usually acts as chaperone for the group on their outings, although they are so pure of heart they never need one, but something always happens and the chaperone saves the day by imparting their wisdom of experience to the group.

The group always goes on an exciting trip or has a local adventure where either something mysterious needs to be solved or a conflict that needs to be resolved, or while on the adventure they meet up with either a young waif or an older person who needs to be taken under the collective wing of the group and offered some kind of help or rescuing.

How'd I do, did I get it pretty close?

I've got one of those stat counters hooked up to my Vox.  It allows me to see which posts are getting hits and where the viewers are located.  I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I assume that when it says someone in Spain is looking at my picture of Scott McCaughey's shoe, then there's actually someone in Spain looking at my picture of Scott McCaughey's shoe.  (For some unknown reason, his shoe is very popular throughout the world.)  I know you can get these things routed all over the place to hide your true location, but I don't get into that.  As far as I'm concerned, Spain = Spain and Oman = Oman.

As Valerae recently mentioned in a post covering similar territory, there seems to be a trend where people from Middle Eastern countries trawl Vox for titillation.  I've noticed over the last six months or so that about a fourth of my hits are coming from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and a mysterious place called Yemen.  From what I can tell, they're not here to read my opinions on books and music.  Instead, they seem to hit the same slightly suggestive images over and over again.  I'm not sure what the internet is like in that part of the world, but I'd assume that their access to smut is severely limited when compared to mine.  They're doing the best they can with what's available to them.

More to the point, I've decided to gather all my most popular titillating images together in one spot.  That way my friends on the other side of the world won't have to waste so much time going through the 2,800+ images in my library.  The attraction of some of the pictures is obvious.  The popularity of others only becomes apparent when you realize I've given them misleading names like "sexy results" and "big cock" (for the watermelon and the rooster sign, respectively).  But anyway, here they are all together for the first time ever.  Enjoy!

QUESTION:  Is there any place on my computer I can look to see what "2" version of Firefox was running before the update to version "3"?

It makes me ANGRY every time I try to go online.  ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY.

First, and most annoyingly, it has changed the way Vox is displayed to me, as well as several other web sites.

I hate what's happened to the bookmarks menu.  I can no longer just click bookmarks from the menu.  I have to click command D TWICE AT LEAST for some hideous black and see-through box to open in some random spot on the page.  Then it won't allow me to select a folder, it just drops it into the uncategorized bookmarks folder.  Then I try to organize the bookmarks and get brutally rebuffed there too.

And I can't stand the round edged address/search bars.  Could it look anymore like Internet Explorer?  If I wanted to work on pc I'd buy a pc.  Stop shitting on my Mac.

And what happened to the tabs?  Why do they take up 1/4 of the toolbar height?  and I don't need some stupid "+" button to open a new tab.

I also despise the changes to the back/forward, stop and reload buttons on the tool bar. 

I hate everything about Firefox 3.  I hate it so much I've gone back to using SAFARI!  It's that awful...

Christmas with the Jews Elizabeth & the Catapult 1 comment Read More Elizabeth & The Catapult http://weheartmus... Paste and Rolling Stone loves Brooklyn-based Elizabeth & The Catapult

ELIZABETH & THE CATAPULT
elizabethandthecatapult.com ♥ myspace.com

The last time we mentioned Elizabeth and the Catapult, the song "Race You", went straight to the top ten on The Hype Machine. And it's easy to see why, the song is such a fun and cute pop song.

This Christmas song, "Christmas with the Jews", is also fun and cute (and not to mention quite short). But what you're thinking when you're listening to this song, is "er, aren't you forgetting Hanukkah?"

Maybe you can ask them if you see them live:

01/28/10 The Barn Clinton, New York
02/05/10 World Cafe Live Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
02/06/10 8x10 Baltimore, Maryland

THE JOY FORMIDABLE
myspace.com ♥ twitter.com

The Joy Formidable - My Beerdrunk Soul is Sadder than a Hundred Dead Christmas Trees

The Joy Formidable

When I first heard of The Joy Formidable last year, I was impressed. I said I saw "lot of potential" in this band. Based on the free Christmas song, "My Beerdrunk Soul is Sadder than a Hundred Dead Christmas Trees" (available at musicglue.com), I'm still loving the vocals by Ritzy.

Maybe there was a problem with my download, but the MP3 track is 4:56, where the last 30 seconds of the song is complete and utterly garbage... it sounds like it was encoded in error and not part of the song. I've edited out the crap part for you.

The tour information they sent me is as follows:

January 2010.
Fri 8 USA New York Terminal 5 w/Passion Pit.
Sat 9 USA New York Terminal 5 w/Passion Pit.
Mon 11 USA New York Union Hall.
Tue 12 USA New York Pianos.

February 2010.
Sun 21 Norway Oslo John Dee w/The Temper Trap.
Mon 22 Denmark Copenhagen Vega w/The Temper Trap.
Tue 23 Denmark Copenhagen Vega w/The Temper Trap.
Wed 24 Sweden Stockholm Debaser Slussen w/The Temper Trap.
Fri 26 Germany Hamburg Molotow w/The Temper Trap.
Sat 27 Germany Berlin Postbahnhof w/The Temper Trap.
Sun 28 Germany Cologne Gloria w/The Temper Trap.

March 2010.
Tue 2 Germany Munich Atomic Café w/The Temper Trap.
Wed 3 Germany Frankfurt Nachtelben w/ The Temper Trap.

THE MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA
themanchesterorchestra.com ♥ myspace.com

The Manchester Orchestra - 12 Days of Christmas

We're on Day 10 of the 12 Days of Christmas, so hurry on over if you're a fan of the Manchester Orchestra. Each of these songs are acoustic live versions of their song. My only complaint is that you have to listen to these songs on the computer - so if you've got 30 minutes to spare, sit and listen away.

My favorite track is "One Hundred Dollar", you can simply hear the anger as singer Andy Hull asks to borrow $100. While the song is short and doesn't offer much explanation, you, as the audience makes up your own background to the song. Anyway, the song is from their latest album, Mean Everything to Nothing, they'll probably be playing loads of their new songs on tour:

01/29/10 Salt Palace Convention Center^{^} Salt Lake City, Utah
01/30/10 The Fillmore^{^} Denver, Colorado
01/31/10 The Black Sheep* Colorado Springs, Colorado
02/02/10 The Marquee* Tulsa, Oklahoma
02/03/10 Juanita’s Cantina Ballroom* Little Rock, Arkansas
02/04/10 New Daisy Theatre* Memphis, Tennessee

^ with Brand New
* with Harrison Hudson

SIA
siamusic.net ♥ myspace.com

Finally, we have Sia. This actually has nothing to do with Christmas, unless you count getting a new music video as a holiday gift. But just talking about the video for "You've Changed" isn't enough to warrant its own article, so I thought I might as well stuck her here.

Sia has always seem to me to be this child trapped in a grown-up's body. The latest video is wonderful, it features this weird stop-motion, "dress up" video-gamey feel to it. I don't know who's idea it was, I'll bet it's a combination of Sia's child-mind and director Dennis Liu of @radical.media, but it came together pretty great.

Be sure to watch the high-resolution video of it (you'll need it to read the song lyrics scrolling at the bottom).

Sia - You've Changed

 12/23/2009 04:58:16 ♥ vu () ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com

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