you have to play the tuba

SOME SHORT LISTS


on the list titled "necessary to delay impending madness":

1) haircut! my hair has reached the length where I look like I have traveled in time (either frontwards or backwards) from the Era of Stupid Hair. Unfortunately, even though I really like the girl who cuts my hair (she has an awesome chicken tattoo!), I really hate making an appointment. HATE IT. Eventually my hair hatred will override my appointment-making hatred and I'll have cute hair again. It's just sad when a person has to resort to an internal hate fight to get a freaking haircut. I think this time I'll make an appointment for next time while I'm there!

2) knee boots. This has been creeping up on me for a long time. First it was one of those jokes that's more of a test -- out loud: "ha ha ha! go-go boots/boots to the knee? suuuure." (inside: secretly covet but think they may be too weird, too much, too loud) -- but I have moved out of that stage and into Acknowledgement Of My Desire. I almost tackled a woman in the library yesterday because she had the coolest non-slutty boots to the knee I have seen in a long time! And then another one came in! it was boots, boots, boots, everywhere! They are so perfect with dresses and skirts in this weird spring weather. I have a pair that come about 6" from the knee, but it's just not the same. sigh. The good news is since we're coming out of boot-season here, I might be able to find some for cheap.
 
recently learned at the library:
 
1) little boys of a certain age (around 6-7) find garfield HILARIOUS. I would have thought it impossible for anyone to do so, but I have seen it with my own eyes!

2) this technically was at staff day and not at the library proper, but I think it counts. Ursula Le Guin was a guest speaker (gracious and wonderful), and during the Q & A she was asked about her advice for aspiring writers. She said (paraphrase): get a good job! You'll need it because hardly anyone gets paid for writing anymore. (she further recommended the kind of job that doesn't devour your every thought and will to live so that you have time to write.) The other thing she recommended, and she was rather apologetic, was practice, practice, practice. She said that it was the unfortunate truth of any of the arts; if you want to play the tuba, you have to play the tuba.

More lists tomorrow, including online places you can keep lists.
 

jumpstart

I am deficient in Vitamin YES lately. I am in the annoyingly vague zone of:

maybe
I think so
could be
I don't know
you may never know
it might work
that sounds good, but...
probably not (but maybe!)

and it is so boring! (boring's all wrong -- it's irritating; it's frightening; it's coming completely unmoored from reality which occasionally has its charms, but this is not one of those occasions.) I wish I could say this was something concrete, but it is a million ephemeral things and maybe 3 tangible things. My aim for the new week (one day at a time!) is to embrace the ephemeral, to delight in the ineffable and to get out of my own goddamned way.

So, because it is National Poetry Month, because it is the start of the week, because I am wearing bouncy moon boots and planting a flag of SO WHAT? in the uneasy jelly mountain of things that could happen, here's a poem about YES from the Poetry 180 site.

God Says Yes To Me

Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic

and she said yes

I asked her if it was okay to be short

and she said it sure is

I asked her if I could wear nail polish

or not wear nail polish
and she said honey

she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly

what you want to

Thanks God I said

And is it even okay if I don't paragraph

my letters

Sweetcakes God said

who knows where she picked that up

what I'm telling you is

Yes Yes Yes

(did you know that the 17th is Poem In Your Pocket Day?)

(did you know that you can subscribe to a poem a day?)

As crazy as it sounds, I do feel better already.

gorilla with a flame thrower (obviously)

This video for national library week made me laugh.



In Other News, I am still waiting on three out of three things, which is not what I call a good time. I'm sure it's making me a better person and all, but it may well drive me crazy first.

In Better News, I can see the crescent moon right out my window, and that's pretty cool for the following reasons:

1) the crescent moon is beautiful, which I don't think gets as much attention as it deserves. I know it's technically overshadowed by THE EARTH, but it's really overshadowed by that glory hound the full moon.

2) that I can see this waxing crescent moon means that the sky is clearing at least a little, and MAYBE the sun will actually shine on the city of portland tomorrow. The sun may shine, and at least one of my three issues may get resolved! I know, I know -- let's not get carried away.

thwarted, or maybe not

I have had a headache all day, which I lay at the feet of the changing weather. It's been raining off and on all day long, but it's allegedly supposed to be in the 70's tomorrow. The barometer squeezes my head once more! I had a lot of energy and a long list this morning but the energy was diverted headacheward fairly early and the list isn't any shorter. Well, it's a little shorter but it wasn't very fun.

Which brings me to my thwartings. I was all prepped to get my Rant On about how everything I've attempted lately has been a failure, but I realized that simply isn't true. What is true is that I have had to wait longer, or things don't happen in the order I think they should happen, or, and this one can be difficult (but rewarding) for me, sometimes things come completely out of the blue! I'm becoming aware that my timelines are often completely artificial and born of impatience rather than any real sense of rightness. My instincts are usually sound, but my timing is usually off. It's getting better, though. I know it sounds cheesy, but I think watching the seasons change in the park has been a big help. The phrase "in the fullness of time" is resonating more and more. (Not that this keeps me from having flat-out freakouts on a regular basis!) ANYWAY. Most recent example would be yesterday when I went downtown to run what was supposed to be a ridiculously simple errand. Of course that didn't work out, and when I got back to my car... TICKET. My expired tags scofflaw bluff had been called by the meter-maid man! The "failure to display current registration" will cost you. (and I deserve to pay! You scoff the law, you takes yer chances.)

I went home (after two more unsuccessful stops), then decided to go to DEQ and finally get the stupid tags. I expected to wait in a hideous line, so I brought reading material. I expected that they would close before I actually got to the testing bay because it was after 4 when I left home. Well, guess what? not only did I drive almost directly into the testing bay (I barely had time to fill out the paperwork), the test took less than 5 minutes, I didn't have to get out of my car -- and since there was no one else in line (and I was EXPIRED) the test guy told me I could put my tags on right there. Of course I ended up ripping one of the tags in half trying to get it out of the baggie and I can't say I'm too fond of squatting in front of OR behind a car that is running, but I left the DEQ a law abiding citizen once more.

Anyway. The photo of the ticket is one taken with the photo booth program on my computer. Another instance of getting ahead of myself -- I decided to start a self portrait project in feb. which I gave up due to boredom, but now, a couple of months later, the photo booth makes it easy and fun. Hooray!

Here are some spring pictures. Everything is changing so fast!

Allergy season is upon us, but how fun are these tassels? (answer: so mega-fun!)


I love how velvety the petals look. This shrub (I can't remember the name) is a hit with the birds.

oooh, this reminds me: flickr now will allow pro members to upload video. I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand -- isn't this why youtube exists? why do they have to go messing with a good thing? on the other hand -- one of the justifications they used was that they saw the video as an opportunity for "long pictures," which I think is pretty cool. I like the notion of a long picture. There is a 90 second cap on length, and I have to say the whole idea has me thinking about the video setting on my little camera, which I never have before. It's like capturing a moment instead of an instant. Or something. The limitations (90 seconds, my camera's extremely limited video ability) remind me of how much fun I had taking landscape pictures on the polaroid (R.I.P.) iZone camera. So, we'll see. Today I took a tiny video (like, 7 seconds!) of some crows flying. I expect there will be a lot of pretentious amateur "beautiful garbage" ala American Beauty videos on flickr in addition to the cats falling off things and babies eating lemons found on youtube, but so what? There will be some really wonderful things, too.

she didn't hear the question!

"Not 'Anytime Annie'? Say, who could forget her? She only said 'no' once, and then she didn't hear the question!"

Ha ha! I just watched 42nd street, and I have to say my favorite character was Ginger Rogers as Anytime Annie. A monocle (!!!), a completely fake posh accent, a finely tuned bullshit detector, a smart mouth, a heart of gold -- what's not to love? I'm going to have to have a Ginger With No Fred film festival. (Fred's such an attention hog.) I would have much preferred to watch more of her and less of that strangely underwater performance by Ruby Keeler as the ingenue. (her timing was so weird and her performance so flattened it was almost like she was recovering from having been accidentally shot with a tranquilizer dart or having her lines simultaneously translated from Russian. I kept hoping that this reaction lag was somehow rooted in her character, but... no. ) Anyway -- Ginger Rogers stole the show whenever she was on the screen. This post at the Self-Styled Siren has considered and wonderful Anytime Annie details.

(the fake accent reminds me of a guy I worked with a couple of weeks ago -- he was dressed like an extra in a Guy Ritchie movie and spoke (only to me!) with a fake english accent. He used his regular voice with patrons. Why do this? Is it because I'd never worked with him before and he thought I wouldn't notice? It's not even a very good fake english accent! It's so bizarre, but it made me laugh.)

Vague Enough?

I read a blog post a couple of weeks ago that I found profoundly affecting in a fun and affirming way (rather than an "oh, I guess I don't have it so bad after all" way). The thing is, I can't link to it -- it would be far too directly revealing! It was code red button pressing for me. It's the kind of thing that if I'd heard it aloud, would render me unconscious and I'd have to be revived via portable defibrillator or random lightning strikes. You can't count on either of those! Reading is so dangerous. It was a short piece; less than 150 words, but it was one of those lightbulb over the head moments. Eureka! Aside from making me dizzy (in a good way), it pulled back the curtain on a window I forgot was there, and I'm so happy it did! The view is lovely and not nearly as limited as I once supposed.


Letters Section:

dear ice cream,

it's not you, it's me. I have to stay away for my own sake. I'll call you when I can button my jeans again.

I miss you already,
me

p.s. will you tell frozen yogurt?

Back On Task:

Today is the day I intend to get a major storage issue taken care of. Woo hoo! Wish me luck. I have all the supplies I need, so I suppose what's next is to get off the internet and actually DO IT. I will be thinking about what other figures (beyond Anytime Annie, the Planter's Peanut and the Monopoly Man) wear monocles. I can't figure out how or why they were ever considered practical, but they DO make me laugh.

green is the color

I decided to risk another photo mosaic, despite the fact that after I made the last two I ended up either sick or in the emergency room. I'm sure it's not related... (my superstitious hope is that by mentioning it, I obviate the curse.)

(it's not completely ridiculous! After I wrote about my right shoe always coming untied, it stopped coming untied! My left shoe -- previously not a problem -- comes untied instead.)

to: april, re: my telekinetic failures, pink, etc.

Sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) I think it would be REALLY GREAT if I could just accomplish things with only the power of my thoughts. I'm not unreasonable -- I'm perfectly willing to think about the things I'd like to accomplish for up to (although ideally less than) 70% of the time it would actually take me to do them. AND YET this incredibly generous offer remains untaken by whatever power in the world grants mental spoon-bending abilities. (I don't really want to bend spoons -- it's just a figure of speech. I really want to move all my furniture while catching up on my reading.) But no matter! I've decided to take the high road here -- no hard feelings from me, Spoon Bending Authority, despite the fact that I promised I'd only use my powers for good! I can take the hint. (I also thought of a nasty side-effect of telekinesis: the unbidden thought! I don't know about you, but some days around the old brain it's all id/super-ego fight, fight, fight and I can't even imagine what kind of mess that would make were it to manifest directly.) So, OKAY! My pledge for April (which I see as being a very busy but very wonderful month) is that I will stop waiting for my Brain Powers to kick in and just do some of those things I've been meaning to do. I'm actually pretty excited, and have already begun getting things done on april-eve.

Pink in the Park The picture at the top of this post was from a week ago or so -- someone had put these stenciled stickers on one of the gates around the park. Litter? maybe, although I would argue that it's not. Cheerful? Definitely! Speaking of pink, there's a beautiful cherry tree at the park that's in full bloom right now. Pictures do it no justice, because there's just no way to capture how frothy and ephemeral the blossoms are -- they look like they're just floating AROUND the tree rather than being attached. I think you could cure a lot of ills just by standing under this tree. (I think it's how I finally overcame my telekinetic dissapointment.... which gives me a great idea for my new Crackpot Counseling Service. Who's the crackpot? Sign up and find out!) Seriously, though -- it is the kind of beautiful that changes things for the better. I did take a couple of pictures -- the one below is hopelessly blurry, but I like it anyway.

snow on the valley floor

It's snowing!! They said it might, (they = International Cabal of Meteorologists) but I never believe them because they are prone to ratings-grabbing hysteria and are notoriously unreliable. Maybe I'll start my own faction, the Benevolent Order of Intuitive Weather. We'll be wrong a lot too, but no one will expect Intuitive Meteorologists to be right, so we'll SEEM right more often. When they (ICM) say in that teasing way on the evening news "will we see snow in portland?" the answer is almost always "no" for most of the city. (the exception being the west hills or wherever it is that people are still somehow in the city limits, yet have enough acreage to keep alpacas.) My point = SNOW! At the end of March! I knew I should have picked daffodils yesterday. I'm sure it will turn to rain very soon; maybe by the time I finish writing this, which would be convenient because then I won't have to brush the snow off my car.

<--- sit here --->

another installment in the ongoing saga of ... Love Graffiti At The Park:

I spotted this a couple of weeks ago on the bench part of a picnic table. My shoe was untied and I was looking for a spot to fix it without kneeling in mud. (my right sneaker comes untied AT LEAST once every time I wear them. Obviously I need a remedial right-shoe-tying course or video or something. Maybe I should ask the advice of a competent six-year old. Why only the right shoe? Why so many mysteries lately?) Anyway, imagine my surprise when I looked down and saw SIT HERE marked out with fairly generous arrow (generous considering these were sharpie directions in a public park). CURIOUS. I looked to the right of the arrows and saw the rest of the message, "I LOVE YOU BABYYY!!" What's going on here? Why did he or she have to sit right there? Three Y's? is this a code of some sort, or did the writer simply get carried away by the time they got to the end? I don't think this is the same prankster as the Love Sticker Leaver or the Chestnut Person, but I do think it's funny that 95% of the graffiti in this park is very sweet if a little bizarre.



In Other News, I need to do some remedial right pinkie typing drills, because 4 times out of 5 I don't hit the P key hard enough on this new keyboard and I end up having to do all kinds of backspacing. As problems go, there are worse ones to have. Two days later and I still LOVE my new computer (of course) and am taking much delight in things that would not amuse an eighth-grader for ten minutes: the CD cover screensaver, for one -- I put it on just to watch them go! and also the ridiculously fun photo booth program. It's so silly and limited, but that's what I love about it. I have been pushing buttons and holding things up to the camera and having a fine old time. The cats are not amused, BUT I AM! I like that it's so limited -- in a lot of ways that makes it easier to experiment.

And now I must go read the last segment of Joann Sfar's Vampire Loves graphic novel. (Lithuanian emo-nerd vampire Ferdinand has a record collection and lady problems. It's really pretty funny. Or if you prefer, from the second link "At once silly and serious, wild and poetic, Joann Sfar’s disquieting tales are filled with intelligence and rich humanity. Vividly illustrated and sensitively written, Vampire Loves is alive with color, wisdom, and humor.")

does this keyboard make my hair look funny?

I am typing this on a beautiful new macbook. Don't I seem smarter and more attractive? ha! The newfangled keyboard and trackpad are going to take me a while to get accustomed to, I can tell you that much right now. I had the old ones broken in the way I like! Worn smooth! However, I am already accustomed to not having to wait one million years for anything involving video to load. My beloved old laptop was SEVEN YEARS OLD. It roamed the earth with the mastadon; it used to hunt pterodactyls uphill in the snow every winter! It had a noisy letter-skiping keyboard and no battery-life but, of course, I miss it even though it is sitting right over there (---->) on the edge of my desk. It was starting to make ominous clicking noises and refusing to burn CDs, so my sister made the sensible suggestion that instead of waiting for it to fail completely and resorting to desperate expensive measures to save all the data I have spectacularly failed to back up, I could get a new computer now and get everything moved over BEFORE the trouble starts. Done and done! (I was going to get a new computer in the next couple of months anyway, so it's not like I've been compulsively ordering diamond fingernails off the internet or other frivolous shopping.)

all things being equal

Happy Vernal Equinox! -- day and night equal length today, but from here until june it will be longer days. (hooray!) I love spring and summer in this city. I intended this post to be longer, but instead I will keep it short (for now) since, thanks to Martina, I have a ticket to go see Barack Obama at the crack of dawn and I should really go to sleep. It's her birthday (and the first day of spring!) and she gave me a ticket. That's some good birthday karma right there. Happy Birthday, Martina!

Happy Spring, other people in the northern hemisphere! Happy Autumn, people in the southern hemisphere!


this is like the tree that blooms right outside my window. I think it's actually a plum and not a cherry, but "cherry blossom" sounds springier, somehow. today, in perfectly fitting spring weather, there was a freak hail/rain shower with a lot of wind. There were pink petals mixed in with the rest and it was really quite lovely (nature's ticker tape parade!), although I was happy to be inside looking at it rather than outside in the middle of it.

I don't know where else to say it, so I'll say it here: today at the park I saw a hummingbird! The funny thing was, I heard it first! They sound like large bugs -- their wings do make a humming (more of a buzzing, really) sound. What I always forget is that they also make this really distinctive smacking noise when they're looking for food. I would have thought it way to early for hummingbirds, but the green one I saw today thought differently. (it's so funny that I saw one since I was JUST thinking about them the other day.)


Peonies! They look like aliens at this stage. Or shiny cooked cabbage. Cooked cabbage aliens at a dance. "would all cabbage aliens please leave the dance floor?" They always refuse, thank god. They persist, looking strange and not of this earth, leaning on each other and swaying back and forth until May/June when they become some of the most beautiful flowers you've ever seen. (they smell good, too. Way to go, cabbage aliens!)


this is from tuesday. It's been raining a lot, but also sunny a lot. Usually in the same day. More soon.

confessions of a DEQ scofflaw

The tags on my car have expired and I have NO DESIRE to go and get them renewed. They expired on the 2nd of February, but since it doesn't say the day on the little number tag (only the month), I always wait until the end of Feb. to do it. Except this time! Now I am waiting for who knows what. I have no good excuse: I don't anticipate any trouble passing the test, I have the money, it's not far or really even that inconvenient. It's sheer cussed laziness on my part, but now some perverse stubbornness has kicked in; the longer I wait, the less I want to do it. It's getting bad, too -- I find myself running yellow lights, turning without signaling -- being the opposite of extra careful, like I want to get caught and hauled away to DEQ jail! I am at war with myself once again; this time it's the honest law abiding citizen (who, to be fair, is usually in charge) trying to take down the lazy DEQ-ignoring moving-violation petty criminal who has somehow gained ascendance. But the HLAC has to go undercover, like Johnny Depp in 21 Jump Street! I probably should go take care of this tomorrow, before I find myself drag racing or operating an illegal taxi service. It's a cry for help, I tell you.

(the photo is from a road trip in 2005, in which I drove through a tree! not this tree, but a different, roomier tree. It was one of those things where you say to yourself "why the hell would I want to drive through a tree???, but once you get there all sensible objections evaporate and are replaced with the knowledge that yes, I will drive through a tree. I have to say that the gift shops in the redwoods, particularly anywhere in the vicinity of a drive through tree, are really TOP NOTCH for kitschy wonderfulness. or awfulness. Really, it's both. Wonderfully awful, awfully wonderful.)

I would name that dog Archie Bunker

I saw a dog in the park today that looked just like Archie Bunker if Archie Bunker were a small white dog. (JUST LIKE HIM! I expected him to open his mouth and call me meathead.) Archie Bunker (the dog) reminds me of Paul Anka (the dog) from Gilmore Girls, which reminds me that I have seen The Return of Jezebel James by GG creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. I want to like it, but I can't quite get there.

First, the good: I like Parker Posey; I like Lauren Ambrose, even though it looks like she doesn't have any eyebrows; I like Diane Weist, even though her character seems (thus far) to be a sloppy outline of "neurotic mother who makes her daughters crazy in opposite ways." I thought that one of the best moments of the first two 1/2 hour episodes was the interaction between Sarah (Posey) and a random little girl in her office -- Sherman-Palladino writes believable (to me, anyway) smart little girls.

On the other hand: the laugh track has got to go. (OH MY GOD! Why are they still using these? If it's funny, I'll laugh all by myself, I promise!) I know a series has to hit the ground running these days, but other half-hour comedies have shown that there are ways to introduce characters and their quirks without bludgeoning the audience. (30 Rock, The Office, My Name is Earl for example.) I felt like they were wasting a lot of their very limited time belaboring some pretty obvious information. I think this show would work better if it were a one hour drama that is also funny, like say... Gilmore Girls.

In other news, I just checked my library hold list, and the new Lubtisch Musicals box set is in transit to me! I am so looking forward to Maurice Chevalier being dapper and dirty in what the link above refers to as "these elegant, bawdy films, made before strict enforcement of the Hays morality code." Elegant and bawdy -- you don't see that in combination too much these days, at least that I'm aware of. Feel free to enlighten me.

Relatedly, this post at Bright Lights After Dark tackles the issue of the short guy's burden (particularly Charlie Ruggles) in "matters of pre-code l'amour."



And speaking of MUSICALS... Joss Whedon is apparently doing a limited internet series musical with Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion!!! Hooray! Here's a quote from Joss' post at Whedonesque:

"This much I will say: It's the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he's too shy to talk to. And I'm having the time of my life.

"DOCTOR HORRIBLE'S SING-ALONG BLOG"

Neil Patrick Harris.....as Dr. Horrible
Nathan Fillion..........as Captain Hammer
Felicia Day.............as Penny

And a cast of Dozens!

Coming soon."

I can't wait!

daff.odil.icio.us

daffodils are blooming! These photos are from years past, but I am willing to testify in a court of law that they look pretty much the same this year.


in bud


in the rain


in the sun


up close


fancy


springy!

hooray! boo! tinfoil hats for everyone!

Here is a random sampling of things that have been making me happy lately, in no particular order:

1. Amy Poehler -- Poehler cracks me all the way up! She has a wide streak of unpredictable but generous energy that I always enjoy watching. She doesn't just play the matriarch or the sexpot or the little girl, she's all over the map in the best possible way. She's really smart and she seems like she is HAVING FUN, which makes me happy. Her interview in Bust magazine last year was great -- The Huffington Post has excerpted some of it here. She talks about how she gets her agent to send her parts for guys (since some comedy writers "freeze up" when writing for women), and her "feminist agenda," which is to see more women comics over 30. "You know, when we were growing up, there were female leads in comedies over 30 who actually looked like they could live in your building. Like, Terri Garr, Lily Tomlin, Bette Midler, Diane Keaton --"

anyway, it's a good interview which unfortunately is not online in its entirety. If you happen across the magazine, read the whole thing because she is FUNNY.

2. Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens are both visible and gorgeous from portland today. (sometimes the clouds hide them completely.) Both very snowy and scenic in the distance.

3. 30 Rock -- Just got season one (from the library!) and I can't believe I haven't been watching this all along. I'd seen an episode or parts of episodes here and there, but OH MY GOD. (there is one part I saw in a promo which my sister and I often repeat to each other, which ALWAYS ends in helpless giggles -- it's Alec Baldwin's Jack Donaghy saying "Of course I'm in a tuxedo, it's after six o'clock. What am I? A farmer?" -- just the way he stretches out the word farmer makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. That it works completely devoid of context is a testament his talent and to how sharp the writing is on this show.)

Everyone is so good! Tina Fey I loved (so much!) already, Tracy Morgan is perfect here -- "they said I smoked crack. I don't smoke crack, I am straight up mentally ill!" (I had limited tolerance for him on SNL -- he was either brilliant or exhausting.) And of course Alec Baldwin, who is so very good at what he does. (The whole fracas around Alec Baldwin's behavior in his personal life gets me wondering about the line between public art and private life and how much the latter should influence opinion of the former. (but then there are celebutantes whose private life is a huge part of their public... I hesitate to say art, so let's say offerings. it gets confusing.) I haven't really gotten to an articulate place with this wondering, but since I just had a conversation with a friend who was conflicted about having broken her Woody Allen ban, it's on my mind.)

I can't believe I watched that trainwreck Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and didn't watch 30 Rock from the beginning. I mean, I probably STILL would have watched the other, but my bitching would have been more varied with this to compare it to.

4. Maira Kalman -- !!! "She dated George Gershwin, for God's sake!" I just started reading The Principles of Uncertainty and it is so good I can't stand it. I love her use of color, her oddball obsessions (some of which I share) and that she kept a diary through paintings. She is thoughtful, melancholy, hopeful and whimsical. I wish I could paint! This book is made up of work from her NYT blog, but it's so nice to hold in your hands and look at it on paper. I recommend a) buying the book (I still can't believe I found it for 3.98! it was meant to be) or b) putting the book on hold at your local library.


you make me feel like slapping:
Vampire Weekend: slap, slap, slap, slap. I'd read the odd headline here and there, but not really followed the Vampire Weekend phenomenon. I was, of course, excited that there was a song about Oxford Commas (anything to do with punctuation or parts of speech or counting or alphabets is usually alright by me), but I listened to it and was kinda "eh." I mean, it was okay, but it did not thrill me. Maybe the subliminal taint of the inevitable backlash had worked its way to my uninformed brain. The song didn't stir animosity in my heart or anything, I just didn't care. I didn't care at all, that is, until I saw them last night on SNL -- now my overwhelming desire is to somehow transport myself through time and space so I can slap them each individually during that performance. They made me mad just looking at them! This so rarely happens! (although I also have the same reaction to Matthew McBlahblah and GWB-- I think it is a reflex located near the perhaps overly sensitive smugness detectors in my brain.) They seem DESIGNED to elicit this response, so I must assume that this is an art band whose objective is to irritate mild mannered viewers into fits of open-handed slapping. What's up with that? They reminded me of nothing so much as the Squares (Baldwin and the Whiffles, specifically) from John Waters' Cry Baby. What I wanted more than anything was for Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker (or Uncle Belvedere Rickettes, even) to come roaring onto the stage and launch into some impossibly, hilariously lewd rockabilly anthem.

slap, slap, slap, slap.

On the other hand, maybe they just caught me at a bad time. I'm fully aware that my reaction is irrational and they're probably perfectly nice.

Tinfoil Hat Alert: apropos of nothing so much as the date, did you know that the GOLF LOBBY is one of the biggest proponents of Daylight Savings Time?!?! I hope this is some kind of internet hoax, because I don't know that I can wrap my head around bending time for the whole nation in order to sell more golf clubs.