Archives : all posts by Dan

Kleenex (LiLiPUT) - "Madness"
Kleenex (LiLiPUT) - "Nighttoad"

I just love everybody, and that's it.
Jessie Gutierrez

I want the world to know that I'm innocent and that I've found peace. Let's ride.
Carl Johnson

I'm an African warrior, born to breathe, and born to die
Carl Kelly

I would like to say that I have no animosity toward anyone. I made a mistake 18 years ago - I lost control of my mind but I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I have no hate toward humanity. I hope He will forgive me for what I done. I didn't mean to.
John Fearance

This execution is not justice. This execution is an act of revenge!
Richard J. Wilkerson

(Mumbled something about he wished his whole life would have been spent as Islamic.)
Walter Williams

I would like to say - I just hope Ms. Fielder is happy now. I would like to thank my lawyer, Nancy, for her help on my case and for being with me now.
Vernon Sattiewhite

I don't think so. That's all. Go ahead. Start things rolling. (Mouthed "Hi, Mom" to his mother.)
Jerry Bird

You all brought me here to be executed, not to make a speech.
That's it.
Charlie Livingston

A lot of people view what is happening here as evil, but I want you to know that I found love and compassion here. The people who work here, I thank them for the kindness they have shown me and I deeply appreciate all that has been done for me by the people who work here. That's all, Warden, I'm ready.
Michael Lee Lockhart

[Buy]

(thanks, Monica)

Double Dagger - "Pillow Talk"

personae:
Huey - black bear
June - black bear

[In a cozy log cabin, with a fire slowly dying in its place. Deep, knotted, gorgeous wood walls, with crude paintings in lovely frames. A human skin rug, a mounted hunter (with rifle) on the wall above the mantle. Candles are burning almost down to their holders. In a large plush bed, Huey and June are having sex.]

June: Huey, what are you thinking?

Huey: Hm?

June: Your mind is somewhere else.

Huey: No it isn't. I'm right here.

June: No, you're not, look at me.

Huey: (giggling) that's weird.

June: What is? Looking at me?

Huey: While we're..(giggling)

June: Huey, no it's not.

Huey: It feels like trying to put two opposite magnets together. I have to hold it there.

June: Well it shouldn't feel like that.

Huey: Well it does.

June: What are you thinking about?

[Huey playfully growls and tries to roll her over]

June: No, I'm serious, Huey. What are you thinking about?

Huey: (sigh) food. Where our next meal is coming from.

June: Why are you thinking about that now?

Huey: So that next time we do this I'll have more energy.

[a long silence as June lays her head on Huey's chest]

June: I don't think we understand each other.

[Buy]

(image source)

ABBA - "Tiger"

Amy gets a text message, she thinks about a response. She dons a tooth necklace, she sips a glass of wine, and reheats rice. "Your ninja lover. beware the wreckoning," she types back. She smirks in the mirror and runs her hands along the sides of her breasts. If she could, she would swing on vines across the city, like some real Tarzan Spider-Man shit. In her periphery she sees movement, a figure, dark. She spins her head around. Nothing. Just the table, the candle, a magazine. She puts on fingerless gloves, runs her tongue across her teeth, and slips on her shoes. She rides her slim bike up the street, into the dark streets, bent forward and silent. [Buy]

The Whiskers - "Ornithopters"

Slipped between the copies of "New Makon's Delight" and "Only For Today" is a hand-drawn picture of a landscape with an alien floating above the ground and an alien floating below the ground as well. The aliens look the same, they look like different attempts at the same drawing, and the ground is spare, with a couple trees and a distant farmhouse. Little blades of grass dot the line of the earth. The alien looks like he's put-putting with a little jetpack and wearing a spandex-y outfit that bulbs out at the joints. He's short with big eyes and a friendly smile. He looks like he came from a cereal box. It could be a doodle, they could just be separate drawings lumped together, but they form quite a little picture. It feels true that the aliens in the sky are the same as the ones in the earth. It feels right that the earth we tread upon is just the transition point, the surface of a mirror, that both worlds above and below are just as threatening, just as friendly, just as unknown. It feels right that when I fly over the top of my handlebars and scrape my face off on the road that another version of me is doing the same exact thing, in sympathy for me. [Pre-Order] (thanks Thom!)

(image is a cropped version of Falero's Departure of the Witches)

Paulson Kalu Afrikhanah & His Stars 25 - "Ochea Special"

An excerpt from The Careful Bartender:

The careful bartender takes his time. He prepares with respect to the drink and not to the lineup. Take for instance, the preparation of a Bachelor's Last Stand. It is 1 finger coconut milk, a mouthful of finest brown rum, a third phase of a lime (match the moon for the night of serving), a flicking of water, and a cactus blossom. It should take three minutes to prepare, to allow all parts to sit and reach the proper temperature. The glass should sweat like a woman in love when served. Never stir this drink, place the parts together like laying down children to sleep. The careful bartender will reap his rewards, for the night will sing his praises in the water on the beach, in the feet in the sand, in the fire in the torches. [New! Buy from Soundway]

Grand Trine - "Nazi Gold"

"This place smells like spit."

[Buy from Divorce Records]

(image via rondo.de)

The Fall - "Y.F.O.C. / Slippy Floor"

A stranger approaches.

He walks with indignity, as if he were always in a bathrobe. But he is not in a bathrobe, he is in acid wash, tight acid wash denim, his body rolling slightly around all its edges. His smile seems to roll out of his face like an excess, like a an unsightly pimple. His hair is long and graying and coming out of a toque. His hands are stained with bike grease and his shoes are breaking open on one side.

The stranger continues to approach. He approaches a group of younger people, all at least ten years his junior, and none of whom he knows.

"Hey, anybody know if there are still tickets to the Gay Dusty Springfield show?"

A long pause. The smoke break quickly becomes a smoke race as they all hurry to finish their cigarettes.

"I don't know, I guess ask inside," says one, with a regal scarf and steel sunglasses.

"Cool, yeah," and the stranger has already settled in. "I saw them like 10 years ago, but I can't wait to see them again, they're so great. Anybody here going?"

A long pause. One goes inside, the winner of the smoke race. Another picks up a flyer from the windowsill, and stares at it, suddenly rapt.

The stranger clears his throat and smiles, that unwanted, goes-to-a-party-just-to-offer-massages kind of smile, and grabs for the flyer. "Check it out," he says.

Reluctantly, the smoker gives up the flyer. "Check it out," says the stranger, "Check this out. If you just--" and he throws the flyer like a frisbee at the young man. It hits his coat and falls to the ground. The stranger picks it up. "'Kay, wait.."

The stranger holds the flyer like he's trying to skip a stone across a calm lake, and throws it again against the young man's chest. Again it falls to the ground.

"Shit, I used to be able to..Hold on, check it out," he says while picking it up. Toss. Fall. Pick up. "Shit, no, I can do this. I learned this, it's hilarious, just check it," toss, "--damn it."

You can see his hands are getting cold and his nose is starting to run. "Just wait, I used to be able to do this."

--

[The Fall are STILL DOING IT, pre-order Your Future Our Clutter from Domino UK]

Mushpot comp still available here (60mb)

Yawn - "Acid"

Kevin worked in an unpopular gallery space. All white walls with the sun careening through the windows like ten-foot slabs of hot butter. But mostly empty. The art, be it paintings of photorealist interpretations of photobooth portraits, or sculptures of giant vegetables made of copper, or installations of field recordings of john and yoko played backwards and filtered mathematically in a descending loop that produced what sounded like jungle sounds or mechanical rain, was underviewed at best. Kevin felt sorry for the artists and for the gallery owner, but they didn't have to sit through the days. They didn't have to experience the hours of endless walk-bys and peek-ins and giggling chatter. He would check his email to look busy or to try not to notice, but his periphery was loud and clear. No one wanted this stuff.

As Kevin was standing warming in the sun one afternoon eating his second pastry, he languidly turned his head towards the guest book. One entry. "Nice stuff! -Corinna" He picked up the pen and added "& Kyle xo". Suddenly Corinna had a boyfriend, and he wanted to be mentioned in the guest book signing. Kevin put down his pastry, crumbs falling on the pristine hardwood, and signed a new entry, "I like the use of colour to depict opposing forces. -Matthew Long, retaliart.com" In short order, Kevin had filled five pages with fictitious sign-ins. Some he imagined were old ladies, some were busy artsy parents, some were art students, some critics (it takes a lot to move a critic to write "boss!" in a guest book). He soon decided to stop, too many sign-ins would give his plot away. He stopped trying to change his handwriting and stopped inventing whole life narratives like ribbons through his mind, and went back to his email.

As different shows moved through the gallery, he would continue his practice, every time the number of sign-ins growing in number. He would have his favourite characters come back, with little updates on their lives, becoming regular visitors to the gallery. Some would be transient, visiting from New York or Boston or the maritimes, but all shared one thing in common: they loved the art in this little unpopular gallery. They couldn't get enough of it, they inhaled it the way Kevin wished he could. They expressed what he thought appreciation ought to sound like, ought to feel like. They gave the art the life it deserved; simple and uncomplicated love.

[MySpace]

(image source)

The Tallest Man on Earth - "Troubles Will be Gone"

A lady in old dark clothes that hung big and soft on her body, with little points of light, little mirrors in her scarf, was handing this note out in the metro, printed on card stock with a picture of a silhouette with a question mark over the face:

My saviour is not God, nor his son, nor any unsensible thing. My saviour is alive, my saviour is here, and I can feel Him. He lives among us, and He will reveal Himself in due time, before the end of our lives, and we will know Him by the way He makes us feel. He will not reveal himself on television, nor in the news, nor in blogsphere [sic] social network or online publication. He will not make a TED lecture. He will step into our lives the way you see a patch of light and suddenly it's warm. He will save us from the edge because He will be strong enough to hold us if we care to catch His hand. He will not wait for us to recognize Him, we will only have a moment. Be ready. Please be aware and be ready. For He is coming, and He will not wait for long. [MySpace]

Dave Grusin - "Opening Night: By Surgery"
Dave Grusin - "On the Strip"

"What do you think for this one, Buck?"
"I want it to go up and down, like ba-da-ba-da-ba-DAAA."
"I want it to feel like glass, somehow."
"Yeah, I can see that, glass. But like wobbly glass, like up-and-down glass."
"Like a drunk midget--dwarf--elf?...Like a drunk little guy who's trying to walk, and you see him and you think, 'Good luck, buddy.'"
"Yes! 'Good luck, buddy,' that kind of feeling. Like getting spun all 'round in the wind of a passing car."
"Like paper?"
"No, not like paper. Like a leaf."
"Like a drunk little leaf."
"Yeah, up and down."

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