Free Okkervil River

Free Okkervil River mixtape album on their site.

www.okkervilriver.com


WOOO-HOOO!

get it.

Knife Collectors Show

Drunk guy selling 161 knives for 140 dollars.
A different assistant on every show.
He’s drunkenly flicking the knives open.

Picks

Books:
Jay Faerber & Mahmud Asrar - Dynamo 5 Vol. 1
Garth Ennis & Jacen Burrows - Chronicles of Wormwood

Music:
The Canadians - A Sky With No Stars
How I Became the Bomb - Let's Go

TV:
Torchwood (Eve Myles is incredibly hot!)

Movies:
Dog Soldiers

Picks

Stories:
Philip K. Dick "Second Variety"

TV:
Dexter
Life
Pushing Daisies

Trend:
Star Trek actors appearing on Heroes. Bring on Spock as Sylar's dad or granddad already.

Music:
Black Mountain

Fear Haiku

Shadows on the page
I’m struck dumb by your rage, I
Can’t even see you.

Picks

Songs:
Babe the Blue Ox "Hazmats"
Centro-matic "Daggers Sharp Enough"

Stories:
Judy Budnitz "Visiting Hours"
Philip K. Dick "Fair Game"

Books:
Grant Morrison "The Invisibles Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution"
Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata "Deathnote"

Movies:
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Leah Gets Educational

Uncle Bob Drinking Beer

Cold

Her under the bright
Lights of the photographers’ lies
Reflecting off the snow.

The Writer's Lament

He soon perceived, however, that the battles which Sir Miles and the rest had waged against armed knights to win a kingdom, were not half so arduous as this which he now undertook to win immortality against the English language. Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; acted his people’s parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.

Virginia Woolf
Orlando: A Biography

Picks

Books:
Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso - 100 Bullets: Hang Up on the Hang Low
Robert Kirkman & Tony Moore - The Walking Dead: Days Gone Bye

TV:
Jekyll
Doctor Who (Human Nature episode)

Haiku Haiku Five Seven Five

Haiku is hard to write
Restricting, limiting sounds
To five, seven, five

GBV song title generator

Check out the GBV song title generator

GBV song title generator

Examples:
- Red Jackass Athens Chicks
- Falling Zero State Assassin
- Fretless Squid Delivery Chambers

Quotes

"You are what you love
not what loves you back."
-Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins
-"You Are What You Love"

To Check Out

Laura Park (aka featherbed) - Funny comics, great flyers and other ephemera.
Laura Park (featherbed)

William Schaff - Has done album covers for Okkervil River, Songs: Ohia and others. Disturbing and beautiful imagery.
William Schaff

I Saw You: Missed Connection Comics - A book of comics pulled from "missed connections" ads. Very funny stuff. Coming out in 2008.
I Saw You

Picks

Books:
Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson - The Boys

Movies:
Little Miss Sunshine

Jim as Dwight

"Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica."

Versatile Art

I signed this in all four corners, so it can be hung in any way and no one can tell you it isn't right side up.
Versatile art! Wave of the future!




"Art class.
It does involve shaking your ass."
-Superchunk

Picks

Movies:
Twin Town

Books:
Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman - Good Omens

Music:
Buffalo Tom - Three Easy Pieces
Jason Isbell - Sirens of the Ditch

Babelizer

It translates English text into several languages and back again until it makes no sense whatsoever.

Give it a try!
www.tashian.com/multibabel/

Text as typed:
To be or not to be, that is the question
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind
To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take up arms against a sea of troubles
And thereby opposing end them.

Translated several times:
The excess to determine or tis because it is not, this ' effect of the
part outpost the more splendid resistance and the cruel lucky person
of the arrow suffers of the internal part or the question to take from
the handspike and closes the cleared excess of the carrier of the sea
that is these summaries are the question had indicated.

Frontman Haiku

There he was standing
With his guitar in arms seemed
So lost without it

Songwriter's Block

The vine comes groping down
To encapsulate your spine
The show only ever stops
To watch you slowly drown
And the clowns laugh no matter
Whether the joke is funny or not

Louder and louder grows the ticking
As you keep up the light switch flicking
Pay attention to detail when you
Hear the confessing bastards of jazz
And the lyrics all seem clichéd
Once you’ve written your first song

The fuzztone is too much
Hurt feelings are your crutch
You asked for her love and
She came away untouched
Now don’t you feel useless and such

The Guided By Voices Name for the Day

The Mariner's Magnetic Phonograph Spike

Brown Truck

I was stopped at a streetlight and I noticed a brown truck pull up next to my car. There was a confederate flag sticker in the middle of the cab window. It wasn’t a new truck. On the tailgate, a large white paper sign had been taped. It was fastened by four pieces of large, clear packing tape. The sign was lettered in thick, black marker. It read, “I am gay by choice” and below that was a telephone number. I don’t know if this was a prank or this guy’s idea of an effective way to corral gay dates. If the latter, you would think he could’ve at least have sprung for a professional-looking magnetic sign. He’s certainly not going to be getting any calls with that cheap thing.

Quotes

"What's the value of the grain of sand at the heart of a pearl?"
- Richard Adams
--Shardik

"Two newspaper editors like playground sneaks
Running a book on which of them is going to last the week.
One of them calls to me,
And he says, 'I know you.
You gave me this tattoo back in '82.
You were a spoiled child then with a record to plug,
And I was a shaven headed seaside thug.
Things haven't really changed that much,
One of us is still getting paid too much.'"
- Elvis Costello
--"When I Was Cruel No. 2"

Picks

Albums:

Okkervil River - The Stage Names
****This album saved my life for a couple of hours this weekend.
Centro-matic - Operation Motorcide

Books:

Phillip Pullman - The Golden Compass
John Le Carre - The Call for the Dead

Lost Flashbacks Guide Part 1

I am a "Lost" fan. One of the things I do, besides reading the boards and rewatching the episodes for hidden clues, is I started compiling a list of all the flashbacks. Whose flashback it is and a phrase to identify the general gist of the flashback. As the seasons went from 1 to 3, the short phrases became slightly longer and more imaginative. I had a couple of requests from someone to post these, along with other "Lost" ephemera. So here is the Lost Flashbacks(except for the last episode of season 3 which was a flash forward...oops spoiler) Guide for seasons 1-3.
Posted by request for Candace.

Season 1

Pilot (plane flashbacks)
- 3 Kate (capture)
- 4 Locke (trip)
- 5 Jack (boy) (savior)
- 6 Sun (escape)
- 7 Charlie (band)
- 8 Sawyer (con)
- 9 Sayid (Nadia)
-10 Claire (psychic)
-11 Jack (father)
-12 Kate (bank)
-13 Boone (incest)
-14 Michael (son)
-15 Charlie (addict)
-16 Sawyer (killer)
-17 Jin (duty)
-18 Hurley (numbers)
-19 Locke (father)
-20 Jack (marriage)
-21 Sayid (bomber)
-22 Kate (boyfriend)
-23 Lost dance mix
-24 Extended “Where’s the rest of the ladder” house remix

Season 2

- 1 Jack (wife’s healing)
- 2 Michael (custody)
- 3 Locke (real Helen)
- 4 Hurley (prairie school freakout)
- 5 Jin/Sun (meeting)
- 6 Shannon (Boone’s betrayal)
- 7 The tail ends
- 8 Ana Lucia (overreact much?)
- 9 Kate (Hello, father)
-10 Eko (Fearless Vampire Killer)
-11 Jack (wife’s cheating)
-12 Charlie (bastard brother)
-13 Sawyer (ghost con)
-14 Sayid (torture school)
-15 Claire (pretty vacant)
-16 Sun (Daddy who?)
-17 Locke (weakened son)
-18 Hurley (Dave’s not here)
-19 Rose/Bernard (Healed! Healed!)
-20 Ana Lucia (Bang Bang)
-21 Eko (psychic miracle?)
-22 Michael (Traitor Bastard!)
-23 Desmond (lost past)

Season 3

- 1 Jack (Who is he?)
- 2 Sun/Jin (Sun’s that fine!)
- 3 Locke (Hitchkhike again!)
- 4 Sawyer (Where’s my money?)
- 5 Eko (Get the shots!)
- 6 Kate (What’s that drink?)
- 7 Juliet (Babylon by Bus)
- 8 Desmond (Time travel, brother?)
- 9 Jack (Red Dragon Tattoo)
-10 Hurley (Mr. Cluck’s Wild Ride)
-11 Sayid (he’s the one)
-12 Claire (I’m your father)
-13 Locke (streak-free shine)
-14 Nikki/Paulo (who the hell are…)
-15 Kate (Girls rule, ok?)
-16 Juliet (Calamity’s got cancer?)
-17 Desmond (he’s my brother)
-18 Sun (Who’s your daddy?)
-19 Locke (Seward, Sawyer, seaweed)
-20 Ben (Daddy issues, again?)
-21 Charlie (Look Back in Anger)
-22 Jack (What What What?)

Bricks and Mortar

An attempt to repay debts

These are a few artists that I always thought received short shrift. I don't think any of these acts have received their due and deserve fame and fortune beyond your wildest dreams. I can honestly say I've never heard a bad song by any of these four. Their albums have given me countless hours of pleasure and this is my all-too ineffectual attempt to say thanks.

Centro-matic

Will Johnson is one of those rare, prolific songwriters. The type whose songcraft quality doesn't diminsh due to the volume of his output. He doesn't put out as much as Pollard, but he has two solo records and there are three South San Gabriel records in addition to all the marvelous Centro-matic records. Get them all.

www.centro-matic.com


Tommy Keene

Tommy Keene is a Pop Zeus. A number of his albums are out of print and that is a crime. Geffen Records, I'm looking at you especially.

www.tommykeene.com


Buffalo Tom

Buffalo Tom are arguably the best live band ever. They have a new album, for which their fans have been eagerly waiting nine years, coming out July 10th.

www.buffalotom.com


Chris Knight

Chris Knight is a country artist, real country. His songs should be played everywhere coast to coast.

www.chrisknight.net

Self Portrait

This week's picks

Albums:
McClusky - McClusky Do Dallas
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Movies:
Slither

Books:
Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down
Jonathan Lethem - Fortress of Solitude

Runner-up

Funky Country

The dot is moving
Away from me across the sky.
I cursed its following me
But now I’m sad to see it go.

It sounds crazy
But I never even realized
That I was holding my breath waiting
For a voice saying, “On With The Show.”

Play some funky country.
Play some just for me.
You know it doesn’t sell,
That’s plain for all to see.
But still play some funky country
And play it really well.

Another sonic burst
Should slake my unruly thirst.

It’s been a long time since the strings came in.
I got your new album you sound different from then.
I’m not finding fault. I like it. I like it. It’s good.
It just didn’t sound like I expected it would.

Play some true punk rock
Play it for the kids
Don’t play that numbered shit
They can’t slam dance to that
And they’ll want some skulls to crack
Before they end up on the skids.

And become another Dead Kennedys fan
That gets lost to Steely Dan.

I Have Made You Presents

So alien have I been cleansed,
Sight was the last to go.
Blurred dancers caper to
The click of insistent typists

Working late to provide alibi.
Hearing was the penultimate casualty,
Hums come from machinery once
Providing syllables of elocutionary grace.

Stepping backwards for once on time,
Breath had been the latest victim.
Expanding lungs triple in size,
Still dots warn of approaching night.

From here my offense begins,
Taste was the first taint removed.
Dullness in what were once delights
Abounds in all I consume.

All my faculties useless
When not in your presence.
You exude a glow
As of vague phosphorescence.
Of my heart and soul
I have made you presents.

maiden voyage

pri·mae·val [prahy-mee-vuhl]

- adjective
having existed from the beginning; in an original stage or state.