Hey hey little fighter girl
It’s you and me up against this whole wide world
Sleeping together in the lion’s den
Got your earrings in my pocket till I see you again
“Fighter Girl” – Mason Jennings
Author Archives: Duff
In Concert: Sea Wolf
This show was sooooooooooooo good. Dramatic and intense and thick and layered. Cascades of sound. LOVED it. I listened to almost nothing but this album all of December and most of January; I was so happy to hear it live.
Other than the 6’2″ dude in front of us wiping out (passed out? fell? who knows?) — and causing me to fear for my safety in my summer dress up chunky high sandals (like if he falls any closer to me, I might break an ankle trying to get out of his way!) — and then being carried out by his friends in a big commotion it was a great night.
And bonus: the hilarious byplay between the tattooed, muscle-y lead guitarist (as opposed to lead vocalist) and the skinny, 12-teen bassist. For ex., every time the bassist had to shake the tambourine, the lead guitarist would keep looking over and smirking at him like “Ha ha young’un’, you’re stuck with the tambourine!” I thought I might be imagining the whole thing but then TL leaned over and said “Are you catching the teasing going on up there?” Oh yeah, it made them even cuter.
Today’s Lunch-time Comics Run
So I’m not quite sure how this happened, but somehow I find myself once again making a weekly run to the comics shop to pick up new books. (This happened once for a year or so in NYC and it was ALL Barbara’s fault, you hear me, girl???? But eventually it went by the wayside.)
- Local #12, the FINAL issue from Brian Wood – A dude who works at the shop got me totally hooked on this series, so much so that in trying to track down the old issues, he wound up bringing in his own copies for the store to sell to me. Now that’s dedication! Presumably it will be released as a graphic novel/compilation, but if you see the single issues, I’d highly recommend them.
- Angel: After the Fall #8 – They’re not quite as good as the Buffy Season 8s, but I’m enjoying them. (But like Buffy Season 8, they continue on from the point of the TV series’ end, so no point in reading them if you didn’t watch all the way through.) This month will have two issues released.
- DMZ “On the Ground” (the graphic novel/compilation of DMZ #s 1-5) – Since I am loving the aforementioned Local so much, I thought I might need to check out other Brian Wood books. So I bought issues #30 and #31 of DMZ last week. Totally intriguing. America’s second civil war has taken place. New Jersey & Inland = the Free States. Brooklyn/Queens/Long Island = The United States of America. Manhattan = The “DMZ“. I liked what I read/saw so far, so now I’m starting from the beginning.
Last week: Buffy Season 8 #15 (I also bought Secret Invasion #3 but that might have been released earlier, can’t remember.)
Next week: Runaways #30
À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…
Eating: Mixed Berry Chewy Spree. Which I’m sure are sour only to me, and holy crap they’re making my face burn up. Could be allergic to them. Better eat 20 more to make sure.
Making: Still the blindstitching to go on Amy’s quilt and so close to being done w/ an elongated Cloud bolero (ravelry link) although at this point I’m fairly convinced I’ll never wind up wearing the thing. Everyone thinks I should wear it with a tanktop but in what weather conditions do a tank top and a wool lacey vest deal go together?
Reading: “The Farther Shore” by Matthew Eck which is really, really good. Welcome to the new generation of war novelists. Tactile and gritty and completely engrossing.
Watching: Battlestar Galactica (old and new) over and over again. And the one and only season of Standoff on Hulu. DAMN, it still pisses me off they cancelled that show. I love episode 2 possibly the best*, but the end of episode 3 is totally (romantically) awesome (Hello, Band of Horses), and also the ends of episodes 12 and 18, just so you know.
Listening: Listening to lots of Joe Purdy (as I may have mentioned), as well as Sea Wolf after seeing their brilliant show last week, (hmmm, which I thought I had written up but apparently not) and Meg Hutchinson. Have bought tons of new stuff; maybe I’ll start listening to that over the weekend. I mean, if I can be unslackerish enough to roll off the couch and press play. I’ve got big relaxation plans going on over here.
*Am I the only one who loves things the “best” rather than the “most”? Where’d I pick that up? I know one of you is to blame. CCB, was it you?
Patheticness of the Day
This really pretty, beautifully melodic, lovely song off Joe Purdy’s latest album is TOTALLY MAKING ME CRY. And the worst part is, it’s called “Ode to Sad Clown.” COME ON NOW PEOPLE. It is an ode to a sad clown and the lyrics are totally making me cry. Can you get more pathetic and stereotypic than that? I think I better go to bed.
(Nonetheless, I assure you it is a good song. Regardless of the pathetic person listening to it.)
I used to hear the children play
used to hear the birds sing
one day they just stopped
and I don’t hear them anymore…
I got caught in this whistling wind
doin my best to regret these sins
Lord would you forgive me
if you know I’m gonna do it again
it’s not that I’m not sorry Lord,
it’s just that I’m not strong
Oh ’cause when that woman looks at me
I cant remember right from wrong…
In Concert: Nada Surf
Given that this was a free show at Ribfest, I knew better than to expect a great mix or clear soundsystem. That said, although I thought the lead guitar was amped too loud and the vocals too low, “See These Bones” sounded even better than I imagined it would be (damn I love that song a ridiculous amount of love), and I really enjoyed the energy of the rest of the show (the rest that came before it, See These Bones being saved for almost the very end). “Ice on the Wing” and “Beautiful Beat” were other highlights. Lowlights were primarily a) the Amazon who kept shifting to stand in front of me no matter where I moved and b) her incessant pawing of her equally Amazonian boyfriend. Ew.
Big Screen: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
As lame and predictable as you would expect. Total schmaltz. Some of it was fun because it pointed back to those old (much better) movies: say, for example, the bit with the snake. But some of it was so ludicrously off pitch, it stuck out like a sore thumb: say, for example, the bits with the gophers. And the monkeys.
I always expect lame dialogue from anything that George Lucas is in anyway connected to, but the animal bits were pure Disney channel. Trying to attract a younger audience? Then perhaps you should have rethought using your original star, who certainly looks his age, if not more.
It was fine for staying in out of the alternate periods of a) torrential rain and b) torrential heat that strafed the city yesterday. Enjoyable enough for that, I guess. But unless you find yourself in similar straits, I couldn’t recommend it.
Fiction: War with the Newts, by Karel Capek
Our June challenge book.
Really sharp political/societal commentary. First section is really rollicking fun. Second and third, a bit darker. Sometimes very sad.
Poignantly predictable, in a way, given world history now in 2008, but probably less predictable and more predictive in its time (first published in 1936).
Loved it.
By the way, Capek is the dude who came up with (created? originated? whateva!) the word “Robot” (in his play R.U.R.). This is also the first book to cause some random stranger to come up and talk to me on public transportation IN MY LIFE and given that I have 5 yrs in Chitown and 13 yrs in NYC reading on public transit every work day, that’s saying something.
Short Stories: The Collected Stories, by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The May challenge book. I had the ’96 Farrar Straus edition so we went off its TOC for what we read (Dad has the Complete vs. the Collected).
Very entertaining, really liked a lot of them. Intensely detailed, plotted down to the last moment (even when there’s not much of a plot), really great dialogue, and lots and lots of crazy neurotics (“The Admirer”, for example. nuts!).
That said, they were arranged (way) too thematically. I mean four or five stories into dybbuks and devils tormenting innocent jews (I really didn’t realize there were that many devils in Judaic tradition) and they all start to seem a little too much the same (and you’ve still got another 20 on that topic to go). Then at the other end of the book, all the NYC stories were lumped together as well. Mixing the disparate types together might have made it an more enjoyable read (or I could have instituted my own mix and read out of order, but how was I to know they were grouped by type?) — not that it wasn’t enjoyable, but there were definitely stories where I thought “another one of these? just like the last four? really?”.
When you get to the NYC stories, there are quite a few where you suddenly see the influence he’s had on Philip Roth. “Old Love” for example shares so many of Roth’s current themes and similar personal details on the part of the protagonist. Dad thinks Singer (rather than Malamud) is really the model for Roth’s E.I. Lonoff (an elder writer who appears in some of Roth’s Zuckerman books).
Snip To Dos [Half Done][as done as it’ll ever be!!] a.k.a. Personal Barriers Against Senility (How else will I remember?)
Write up April and May books (holy frakkin hell, I’ve read 11 books since the last one I posted about. FRAK.)(from here to here (and all the posts between) and now I’m all caught up)
- Write up remaining
MayApril gigs (andonetwo fromJuneMay) (here, here, here and here)
Entire FamilyReaction on Iron Man (Bonus MomReaction! Extremely rare!).Last year I went to 57 movies. This year so far = only 10. WTF? And, hello, how sad. (here and a bonus movie here)
April Best of (hello when was April again?)(here)
New Currently(here)
March albums(here)
- Current favorite tunes [was I kidding with this one? WHATEVA.]