stayin gold

http://lookbook.nu/look/227597-stay-gold-ponyboy-stay-gold

for those of you who read this blog who know me, you'll remember that my 22nd birthday party was a moderately attended greaser bash whose invitations I littered with references to the Outsiders. Per a recommendation from my friend, Mr. Rice, I was looking at Look Book today at the various fashions there (a site that could rival the Sartorialist in my affections, although definitely a different vibe), and the above link shows a girl with a t-shirt that just says "Stay gold." Methinks I'm blatantly going to rip off that design with some iron-on letters.

Side note: a lot of the people on LookBook are under 20, including the girl in the link, who looks terribly mature for her age but also about as angsty as a 15 year old should be. Oh to be young, way more fashionable than I was at that age, and stupid.

Just Thoughts on Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me"

Ok, we've all been there. If you are an American human being with a television set and a pair of eyes (and probably grew up sometime after the 50s), you've seen a pop video that was entirely about the fact that the protagonist belonged with the attractive object of their affection. It's a tale as old a time, a song as old as rhyme, right?

Yes. It is. But yesterday as I was driving on I-40 I heard Taylor Swift's longing rendition of this theme on the radio, and I found myself thinking of the music video I posted above. I will make no excuses for the song or Taylor Swift herself; I am a music snob [generally speaking] and her pop is some of the worst pop. During this drive, however, I realized what could make this music video exactly the opposite of what it is (repetitive, overwrought, unoriginal drivel): the protagnoist should be a gay kid. Yeah, that's right. In the video, Taylor Swift plays both versions of this cute high school jock's possible girlfriends. Wearing a brown wig, she's the bitchy one. Looking like herself with big ol' glasses, she's the au-natural, practically-perfect-in-her-nerdiness band geek. (And hello? Hasn't everyone already seen Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend?") So the video should really be about unrequited gay love. The perfect blond jock-boy should be dating Taylor Swift. The person singing the song, living next door to Mr. Perfect, and writing him cute signs should be a boy. Then this video would really be interesting--and perhaps, could speak to a largely unexplored version of unrequited teenage love in mainstream pop culture. It would be marvelous and perfectly fantastic--imagine a boy singing the lines "She wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts", "She wears high heels, I wear sneakers" or alternately, "She's the cheerleader and I'm in the bleachers." The song already matches up so well to this idea I'm tempted to sell it to Taylor Swift herself.

I dream of a world in which pop music has an iota of originality. Oh well, at least there's Lady Gaga.

the musics

...so faithful readers...of which I am sure there are but a few...

I come to you asking to make music recommendations for me, especially if you have a hankering for my opinion on anything. 'Cos I'm jonesing for some new music to listen to, but I am dry on ideas and new music. I know the responsible thing to do would be to actually read a music website for once (like would it kill me to peruse pitchfork?) but that's really not my style. For one, I only like reading really scathing record reviews. One of my favorites was their review of the Bravery album the Bravery, which I will excerpt here:

"The Bravery will tell you they don't know of any nu-rock revival. They just happen to like wearing leather jackets and having their gaunt faces photographed in elevators. Their idea to combine new wave, garage rock, and dance music just popped into their head, because, hey, what if rock bands started doing that?" (Adam Moerder, April 18, 2005)

But, on the other hand, I've decided to own up shamelessly to the fact that I don't always aspire to intelligent reading on the web. After all, I just finished scouring One D at a Time and have been lovingly gazing at the bellismo photos on the Sartorialist (if you're interested in either of these blogs, I refer you to my blog list sidebar, as well as the links above).

But since I can't expect to receive without giving, I will let you all into my iPod playlist of the day and my thoughts about each respective song/artist combo.

On-the-Go from August 19, 2009:

Zero & Heads Will Roll by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
One can argue a lot about which song is the better song (or better dance song) from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' album "It's Blitz" (or one could also argue about the fact that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sound a heckuva lot different now--duh) but I still like Heads will Roll best. Perhaps it's my love of the straight up macabre dance hook "Off with your head. Dance til your dead."
[For the record, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have done a pretty good job of making sure you can't embed their videos...hella lame...I guess they're too corporate for us]



L.E.S. Artistes, Creator, & Lights Out by Santogold (Santigold? I don't think I can ever fully acknowledge that name as it's simply not as cool)
I went with the three-hit trifecta from Santogold's debut album because I'm.still.not.over.her. This music reflects a pretty specific time in my life (summer 2008) when she was all over New York and T.V. and all of that. Even today I'm surprised to find people who haven't actually listened to her much. I think this is great pop music--what pop could really be if we expected more from it--and I love every inch, even a year later.



Modern Art by Art Brut
Listen for the spoken word diatribe in the middle during which he "SEES A MATISSE AND...RUNS AT IT"



Hell Yes by Beck
Strangely enough I got my first real exposure to this song because my dad liked the video. He wanted me to watch all of the little robots. A couple years later, I found myself absently adding this song to every playlist I had going, thinking "Hell yes" every time the girls told me to "Please Enjoy."



Pretty Baby by Blondie
Oh yeah, Blondie rules. I feel like anybody who typically likes my favorite genre of music (Indie rock--if that still means anything anymore) is all about the Blondie so it almost feels redundant to list this song, but it was the one Blondie song I wanted to hear today.



Julie With... by Brian Eno
My aunt put this song on a mix tape for me when I was in high school. Needless to say, this song is very evocative for me, but I think it would still be evocative without the pervasive "oh I remember how it was to feel like an adolescent" B.S. that typically taints music you REALLY REALLY liked in high school. There's something otherworldly about the song, and dare I say, Brian Eno's music in general.



The Next Time Around by Little Joy
Little Joy is Fabrizio Moretti's solo project (For those who don't know, the drummer from the Strokes). I picked this up at an Amoeba Music, and I find it utterly charming. Charming is a pretty damning word to use for music I suppose, as I don't think I would ever buy an album based on that description. But the album as a whole, as evidenced by the music video, is sprinkled liberally with ukelele and French and the kinds of sounds and cadences that make you feel good just by listening. Like, maybe someday I too can chill out in Hawaii with a vintage Botex camera.


So hit me up with your recent music listenings and desires!

being from the south means...

Everybody I know most definitely needs to read up on the Mason-Dixon line. CLICK THIS LINK.

NO i said 'ello but that's close enough

jeff goldblum moving to law and order is the best thing ever

Lonesome Dove pt 2

I finished reading Lonesome Dove and am now watching the 10 hour miniseries. When I read books I manage to make real connections with, I like to write down passages that strike me in some way, so I'm going to include these passages here for you, my dear reader.

These are all from the novel Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

In this passage, Dish is a cowboy with Gus and Call's outfit:
"In a flash, as he stood half-through the swinging doors, Dish's whole conception of woman changed; it was as if lightning had struck, burning his old notions to a crisp in one instant. Nothing was going to be as he had imagined it--maybe nothing ever would again. He started to go back out the door, so he could at least go off and adjust to his new life alone, but he had lingered a moment too long."

"Though the day was hot and bright, Dish felt cold and cloudy, so puzzled by the strange business called life that he couldn't think where to look, much less what to say. He took a drink an then another and then several, and, though life remained cloudy, the inside of the cloud began to be warm. By the middle of the second bottle, he had stopped worrying about Lorie and Jake Spoon and was sitting by the piano singing 'My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean,' while Lippy played."

"He had slept beside their own old milk cow on many a cold night, but he figured if he tired to lie down beside one of the animals they called cows in America the cow would be 50 miles away before he got to sleep."

"She had a beautiful face, a beautiful body, but also a distance in her such as he had never met in a woman. Certain mountains were that way, like the Bighorns. The air around them was so clear you could ride toward them for day without seeming to get any closer. And yet, if you kept riding, you would get to the mountains. He was not so sure he would ever get to Lorie. Even when she took him, there was a distance between them."

"They were friends, though, he and Newt. The boy was young an ha all his hopes, while Deets was older and had fewer. Newt sometimes asked so many questions that Deets had to laugh--he was like a cistern, from which questions flowed instead of water. Some Deets answered and some he didn't. He didn't tell Newt all he knew. He didn't tell him that even when life seemed easy, it kept getting harder. Deets like his work, like being part of the outfit and having his name on the sign; yet he often felt sad. His main happiness consisted of sitting with his back against the water tank at night, watching the sky and the changing moon.

He had known several men who blew their heads off, and he had pondered it much. It seemed to him it was probably because they could not take enough happiness just from the sky and the moon to carry them over the low feelings that came to all men. Those feelings hadn't come to the boy yet. He was a good boy, as gentle as the gray oves that came to peck for gravel on the flats behind the barn."

"That possibility alone made his quandary more difficult. His wife had left for parts unknown, his deputy was wandering in parts unknown, and the man he was supposed to catch was in yet parts unknown. In fact, July felt he had reached a point in his life where virtually nothing was known. He and Joe were on a street in Fort Worth, and that was basically the sum of his knowledge."

"The sun soon melted the thine snow, and for the next week the days were hot again. Po Campo walked all day behind the wagon, followed by the pigs, who bored through the tall grass like moles--a sight that amused the cowboys, although Augustus worried that the pigs might stray off.

'We ought to let them ride in the wagon,' he suggested to Call.
'I don't see why.'
'Well, they've made history,' Augustus pointed out.
'When?' Call asked. 'I didn't notice.'
'Why, they're the first pigs to walk all the way from Texas to Montana,' Augustus said. 'That's quite a feat for a pig.'
'What will it get them?' Call inquired. 'Eaten by a bear if they ain't careful, or eaten by us if they are. They've had a long walk for nothing.'
'Yes, and the same's likely true for us,' Augustus said, irritated that his friend wasn't more appreciative of pigs."

And for your viewing please, if you've reached the end of this post, another clip of Lonesome Dove. (I apologize for the quality, but if you're willing to listen to what's being said, it is some highly useful advice.)

Ocean Isle Beach Photo Essay

Lonesome Dove

I've just got back from Ocean Isle and would like to post a few pictures from it, but I'm still recovering. So enjoy my latest obsession.