Author Archives: Duff

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Eating: Food I cooked myself, can you believe it? It’s been many, many months since I last spent time in the kitchen. In other fun news, my carbon monoxide alarm now goes off every time I use the oven.

Making: Haven’t made a stitch of progress in anything. But I am going to KIP tonight so that should be good for a couple rounds on a sock.

Reading: Our November challenge book, “The Oxford Book of Short Stories” edited by V.S. Pritchett. I am only a few stories in so still in the “way back” part of the collection. I’ve read it (somewhere?) before and I really, really hate Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark.” HATE. But the other stories have been good.

Watching: Old, but from this season, episodes of House on Hulu and remembering exactly why I’m not watching this show at home either in real time or on TIVO anymore. It’s WAY beyond time for a new formula.

Listening to: Everlast. Joseph Arthur. Ray LaMontagne. The Avett Brothers. The Billionaires. The Wave Pictures. Mumford and Sons. Sam Phillips. Just kinda wandering around my iPod.

Dear Owen Gleiberman,

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I’m reading your review of “Let the Right One In“, (published in Entertainment Weekly #1018) and wow, I can’t believe how WRONG you got this one. The dude who kills people and drains their blood? He’s neither an actual “serial killer” nor the vampire’s father*. He’s something like her butler, or her servant (or perhaps someone her vampire family entrusted to aid her). He goes out and kills people and drains their blood…TO FEED HER. So she doesn’t go out killing people vampire-style and get caught and say, perhaps, staked in the heart.

Seriously,
I know it was in Swedish, but it wasn’t that hard to understand,
CMS

*Certainly no one I saw it with thinks he’s her ‘father’ and most vampires would acknowledge their ‘father’ as being the one who turned them.

In Concert: Sam Phillips

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Once a million years ago (late 80s/early 90s), I got this Rolling Stone mix tape, one selection of which was “Where the Colors Don’t Go” by Sam Phillips, a song I have listened to off and on ever since. Then Ladder 49 came out with both a great Joaquin performance AND “How to Dream” another great Sam Phillips song. And somewhere along the way I heard “I Need Love“, which is just a GREAT song.

You’re a secret I whisper to myself

That’s all I knew going in. She’s a real show”man”, so to speak. Very late-night bar/cabaret feel. Unusual instrumentation, very focused. Similar to going to a Joe Henry or Joan Baez concert. And speaking of Joe Henry, I am 99% sure that Jay Bellerose, who blew my mind at the Joe Henry concert, was also the drummer for Sam Phillips. Wow.

If you are buying me a birthday present next year: percussion lessons with Jay Bellerose please! Thanks! 🙂

Broken like a window, I see my blindness now
And I need love, not some sentimental prison
I need God, not the political church
I need fire to melt the frozen sea inside me
I need love

August Album Reviews

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Why do I even do these if I do them three months later, you may ask yourself. Merely to cement things in my own (increasingly addled) mind would be my answer.

Absolutely Love & Adore:

The New Frontiers “Mending” – Pretty sure I bought this after hearing a single on Fuel/Friends. Wow, this album is oddly heartbreaking. “Mirrors” sends me pretty close to crying every time I hear it [hold up *ahem*, is this a God song? I am just listening a little more closely to the lyrics and getting that icky religion shiver up my spine]. “The Day You Fell Apart” has a total Travis feel. But my favorite song is “Strangers”.

Carla Bruni “Comme si de rien n’etait” – So lovely. I guess she’s gotten some flack in France for being a cheesy pop singer but this whole thing is pure sultriness to me. And my favorite song is definitely the (in)famous “Tu es me came” (“you are my drug”). I loved her previous album en francais as well, although not so much the one en anglais.

Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip “Angles” – Yay yay yay. YAY! The funnest rap out there. “Letter from God to Man”, “Beat that My Heart Skipped” and “Thou Shalt Always Kill” are all kinda obvious to have as favorites, but that’s the way it is sometimes.

Joseph Arthur “Foreign Girls” – His whateverth EP of the year (fourth?). I particularly love “Lovely Cost” which has a Bowiesqueness.

Paddy Casey “Addicted to Company (Part 1) – I can’t remember if it was MG or MF that sent me this but thank you to whichever because it’s kinda great. (Maybe too folk-y for some a yous though.) “City” is my fave, particularly for its great opening.

Favorite Singles (not on any of the above albums):

  • Jump Little Children “Cathedrals” – old and kinda cheesy but I’m lovin it lately.
  • “Bang On” the Breeders – YUPPERDO
  • “To The Bone” Mugison
  • “Let Me Go On” Seabird
  • “Chicago” Lucy Wainwright Roche (LOVE this)
  • “Long Division” Slow Runner
  • “It’s You” Pictures and Sound

Other Albums I Liked:

  • Dr. Dog “Fate” – I really really like some songs on this album (“The Rabbit, the Bat & the Reindeer”, “The Dearly Departed”, “Uncovering the Old”) but there are a few that I have to forward quickly past (“The Ark”, “The Beach”). So it’s a bit uneven to me (bad) but in general they’re a bit Beatles-esque (good).
  • The Ting Tings “We Started Nothing” – as with Dr. Dog, I like this, but not totally. It’s a bit uneven stylistically. Maybe they haven’t quite found “their sound” yet. Some of it’s rappish, some sing-songy (“Traffic Light”). When these songs come up on shuffle, I can’t always place them.
  • Newton Faulkner “Hand Built by Robots” – Also sent to me by MG or MF (dang I am losing my mind). Somewhat folky. Really really like “Uncomfortably Slow” and “Dbdbdb”. Sometimes a Jason Mraz vibe (“Feels like Home”, “People Should Smile More” “U.F.O.”) which may be why I’m not totally into it (I loved Mraz’ early stuff but then I saw him do some weird “come on give me attention!” stuff live and I kinda went off him).

Not really for me / but maybe for you!:

The Black Keys “Attack and Release” – I like these guys live a LOT. And the album’s fine…But I don’t find I listen to it much.

Shamefully have either not listened to at all, or not all the way through, or so few times that I can’t legitimately offer an opinion:

Nada!! [OK actually a couple mixes I was sent have only gotten a tiny bit o’ listenin’ time.]

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Eating: Pumpkin scones from SBUX. They are sooooo good. They are also 500 calories, which lands on the not so good side. So as long as you just don’t eat anything else…

Making: Vaguely knitting socks for Dad and socks for me. Vaguely. [All the same quilts in all the same stages they’ve been in.]

Reading: Same as last week…since I spent a gazillion hours at the Chicago Film Festival I’ve barely done any reading at all: At home I’m reading the Ford-edited short stories from our July / October challenge. On the train I’m reading “The Conversations at Curlow Creek” by David Malouf which is very slow and measured but weighty in its own way.

Watching: The Offce, Pushing Daisies and Sons of Anarchy. Those three are definitely my favorite shows right now so I generally watch each episode a few times. You know, once the night it’s on, once the next night while I’m falling asleep, once over the weekend when I don’t feel like doing anything on my to-do list… [As well as random online video interviews of my future husband. They do keep popping up!]

Listening to: Last few days I’ve been listening to everything I bought in August, September and so far in October in one big shuffled pack. I am particularly loving Mumford & Sons “White Blank Pages“, First Aid Kit’s cover of “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” (Fleet Foxes), Carla Bruni “Tu es ma came”, The New Frontiers “Mirrors”, Jump Little Children “Cathedrals” (old and kinda cheesy but damn I can’t stop listening to it), Ryan Auffenberg “Pictures (of Someone Else)“, but that’s just a samplin’.

Favorite Album of Today

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“Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford” Everlast
I’ve loved his gravelly thick voice for a long time and if you’ve never heard his cover of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”…then you probably didn’t get a mix from me during that two-year period when I put it on every mix because I just couldn’t stop listening to it. He also does the theme song to Saving Grace (love the song way more than the show!).
I guess they probably file him under rap/hip-hop? But he’s not really a rapper. Some of the lyrics are a bit rough and tumble…if you’re feeling a little murderous, they certainly keep you hyped up and may push you over the edge into actual violence, ha ha ha (I’M KIDDING). But that’s only some of the songs. And there’s his lovely bass singing over a kind of rollicking rambling background that is sometimes hip-hop-ish in its beats, but sometimes almost country.

David Sedaris on the “Undecided” Voters.

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To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?

[Link via Three Imaginary Girls, via Slog via The New Yorker]

My Evening with Kevin Smith / Big Screen: Zach and Miri Make a Porno

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7:30pm – Already in line for Zach and Miri an hour from now (ridiculous).

7:31pm – But turns out pomegranate jelly bellies are addictive. So there’s that.

7:43pm – This is worse than the Battlestar lines at Dragon*Con. And no twins here to keep me company.

8:35pm – Oh shit Kevin Smith is actually going to be here!!
[Viewing Zack and Miri Make a Porno]

10:31pm – Kevin Smith Q and A is making me very happy!

10:37pm – Someone just asked “Kevin, did George Lucas step on your balls about Star Whores?”

10:43pm – Kevin Smith used to be a Front Wiper. I do not jest. [Until Harley Quinn’s birth when a nurse told him he should be doing it the other way!]

10:47pm – His next movie* is so bleak “it makes Dark Knight look like Beverly Hills Chihuahua.”

11:12pm – Rosario Dawson was supposed to play Miri. [They moved the timing of filming and that made it conflict with “Eagle Eye” so they had to find someone else relatively last minute. But Elizabeth Banks is actually perfect in it (my opinion AND his) so it worked out great. Per Kevin: “She really grounds the movie.”]

11:24pm – Kevin Smith’s all-time fav porn title: “Jerk my cum crayon and color me white.”

*Next movie = Red State. Described as him finally finding a way to talk politics. A political horror film. Not funny at all. Having trouble finding financing.

Explanatory:
At Chicago Film Festival to see Zach & Miri. Often there are directors and/or actors who take Q&A afterward but it’s generally noted in the program. This one didn’t say so but surprise surprise. So sad my dad couldn’t be here to see this!!! If you don’t know: Kevin Smith LOVES doing Q&As. If you’ve ever listened to a SModcast or watched one of his An Evening with Kevin Smith DVDs, you can pretty much imagine how a) awesome and b) funny this was. And also how insanely comfortable he is talking about any and/or every personal detail of his life.

Other random quotes that I didn’t actually twitter:
Ben Affleck on viewing Jason Mewes’ nude scene: “You realize Mewes is just one pump away from full liftoff, right?”

Personal note to Ben from me: Are you just maybe kinda jealous because Jason Mewes is so smokin hot in this movie? [I’m so not joking. Skinny and his hair all clean cut? And damn those shoulder tattoos are AWESOME.]

After talking about Red State and saying “Sorry for bringing the whole room down”, someone started their question with “Not to bring the whole room down again” and KS yelled “So Don’t!” and tried to move on. Turned out the dude wanted to ask him about the whole “how’re you doing on your diet thing?” [What a dick.] KS wasn’t necessarily “happy to” but he, in his usual brutally honest way, did respond and chat about it. But the best part was when he pointed out “You know, some skinny motherfucker always has to point out how fat I am!!!” And the whole audience looked at the questioner disapprovingly! Ha!

And the movie?
Lots of fun. Totally crude and nasty and gross. And soooooo funny and very sweet and romantic. Honestly, the last five minutes, even with the Dutch Rudder jokes, were so touching. YAY!!! [And I don’t even like Seth Rogen.] Also Darryl from The Office? is HYSTERICAL in this. Brandon Routh was a total Tom Cruise doppelganger. So much so it gave me a little doubletake each time. A great night at the movies. The flick alone made me grin like an idiot. And then Kevin Smith’s appearance just sent the evening over the top.

*Bliss*.