1. Make list.

2. Cross things off. Repeat until list is exhausted.

3. Discard list.

4. Repeat.

Okay, this is very late notice for myspace, but I have some stuff hanging in a show tomorrow night. They'll be up for ten days.




These are the pieces that I'm showing.







.

Some people need to go on diets to lose weight. I need to go on fanatical cleaning sprees to lose the psychological weight of being a pack rat.

And like a diet, after the cleaning is over, I slip back into the old habits. The ephemera and the detritus pile up again, shoved into boxes, boxes shoved into closets. It spills out all over the apartment: stacks of books, cd's, magazines, piles of old paystubs and bank receipts, unrealized potential art mediums and vehicles, objects with borderline sentimental value that somehow manage to hang on to their place in my life for ridiculously long periods of time.

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating (it's one of the insights that I've had that actually seems original and significant to me): Going through the old boxes and tossing out these things is a personal archaelogy. The cleaning becomes excavation, the ephemera become fossils, the pieces that are saved and noted are the museum pieces deserving of display. And looking at the pieces, looking back at who I was, I have the distance of time to let me see myself clearly for who I really was, stripped of some of the self-righteousness and egotism that stalks all of us.

And it's good. Each object discarded lifts a bit more weight from my shoulders, makes me a bit more free. Most of the time, I'm walking through this world with more on my mind than I can handle.

...

So I'm doing a bit of belated spring cleaning (three years belated, I'd say), going through the old boxes and the packed closets:

I came across an essay I had written for a college class on the subject of Robert Frank and his most famous work, "The Americans". "The Americans" is a long photo essay in the form of a book that is a vision of the then-contemporary social landscape of the United States. Frank, a Swiss expatriate living in New York in the 50's, received a Guggenheim fellowship to finish his pet project: criss-crossing the American landscape on the quintessential 1950's voyage of discovery, the road-trip. With the Interstate system still young and America's economy booming in the post-War period, the car became a symbol of our society and road trips became the rite of passage for young Americans.  Jack Kerouac's On the Road had been published at the beginning of the 50's, documenting a semi-fictional account of his own experiences criss-crossing the nation. Keroauc wrote the foreward to Frank's book.

So here I am holding the essay I wrote in my hands. And I remember writing it. It was grueling. I had only the shallowest bit of insight of what Frank was saying or doing. My blinders were on. I just didn't get it. And I thought I was trying as hard as I could, but really I was just spinning myself in circles. The only thing I did get was the feeling. I knew that there was something ominous and critical in these photographs and the way they paired off, side by side or on consecutive pages.

And it makes me wonder: What are the blinders that I wear now? What is there that I am not seeing because I don't want to see it? And will any of this lead to something? Is this the breakthorugh to the next level of who I am supposed to be?

Is the point of this story that I need six years to figure something out?

...

All right, all right, enough with the histrionics. Here's something else: I recommend the latest Sparklehorse album, "Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain". It's not new, it came out about a year ago. I didn't really get that into it at first either, but I've been listening to it every day for the last week.

Here is Sparklehorse playing at Webster Hall last February.

Christian Fennesz
Mark Clifford
Keith Fullerton Whitman
Nick Zammuto
Ben Chasny
Tim Hecker
...
Some that I don't really listen to but make music in the same vein:
Pan*American
Jim O'Rourke
Labradford
Aix Em Klemm
mwvm

Sooooo...

I made a myspace music page: atsl

A.T.S.L. are my initials.

They were embroidered onto my Land's End satchel/school bag that I used when I was in Junior High. I was made fun of for that; it's a short step from "atsl" to "asshole". Also, it had a small patch with a Land's End logo on it that had a sailing ship and the words "Square Rigger" on it. I think if I had that bag now, it would definitely still make me a huge dork. But still though, chilrden are cruel.

Anyways, the music I posted so far is straight up lofi midi Garageband. Let me know if they are mixed too low. I think the levels meter in Garageband doesn't read midi-produced sound very well, it always shows clipping on tracks that play too softly in iTunes. Also, there isn't any good or easy way so apply a compressor to the entire track in Garageband, so fine tuning this stuff is a pain in the ass.

FYI, Garageband sucks if you've ever used either ProTools or CoolEdit. Or Reason or Cubase, I guess, though I'm not familiar with either of those. I'm sure it especially sucks compared to Logic, since Garageband is Apple's bait for you to buy Logic. (Here's a little taste for free, but if you want the good stuff, that will be $1000.)

When I wasn't looking Ze Frank's show ("The Show") ended. Here's the Show he did on my birthday, which is about fear.

Here is my synopsis: On March 17th, 2006, some guy posted a show at his website with the promise of doing a three to five minute episode every day* for a year. He stared at the camera and said some seemingly random things and some actual random things. He talked about the news and politics frequently and made jokes about poop and duckies and he sang some fairly ridiculous songs. He incorporated all these thing into his show as recurring themes. Then he got bored of them and made new themes, like turning the entire earth into a sandwich or making a fan shirt for a German kid who was too cheap to buy one for himself. Then he got bored of those themes.

Etc.

Somewhere along the way he realized he had given himself a fairly overwhelming task. Taping and editing an entertaining show is hard enough, but then doing it every day, not getting paid for it and making the whole thing by yourself is even worse. So he started asking everyone who was watching help him make the show. Or maybe that was the plan all along, I don't know, I'm not the guy.

And for some people it's very entertaining. And some people don't think so. (Vague enough?) But entertaining or not, he articulates some interesting ideas about goals, fear, education, life, death, god, the lack of god, etc. Maybe some day I will sift through them and find the ones that had notably profound moments and post them up here for you.


*excluding weekends and some holidays and one other day for some other reason, I don't remember what.

....

Here another interesting one: Awkward Things I Say to Girls. I think I rank up there with some of the all-time greats in the field of awkward-things-to-say-to-girls, although in many of my cases, the awkwardness really stems from the things I don't say.

(Aaron, Awkward Silence King.)

But it seems to me that this guy actually isn't that bad at talking to girls. He apparently can maintain a girlfriend in his life for stretches of time longer than two months, he actually can get to the part of the conversation where he asks the girl for her number and actually gets it, and sometimes he actually calls, so at least he's better at this than I am.

We celebrated Rene's birthday last night. We went to a Japanese restaurant that Anthony recommended and drank gold sake, expensive sake served in a bowl with gold flakes sprinkled in it. I also had shabu-shabu for the first time since I ate it with my brother, his wife and her parents in Osaka.

....

Mark your calendar, get a ticket:
Keith Fullerton Whitman (aka Hrvatski) is at Tonic on Friday, March 23rd.
Ellen Allien and Miss Kittin are at Studio B on Saturday, March 24th.
Do Make Say Think are at Southpaw and Bowery on March 28th and 29th.

I've already got my ticket for Ellen and Kittin, but I have loose plans to go to all of these. (Maybe not both nights of DMST.)

Okay, so I just bought a ticket for each night of Do Make Say Think because I like the opening band, The Berg Sans Nipple. (I know, I know, who the fuck names these bands? Clearly a sadist.)

I heard the Berg Sans Nipple (I'm gonna get tired of saying that real fast) on a mixtape that had a lot of good stuff on it. I was actually looking for an mp3 of the Tigercity song "Let Her Go" and i found this. Other highlights include Thee More Shallows and Andrew Bird. (So far, that is. Those are the four highlights out of the first five songs. It's a really good mix.)

I was in New Orleans about a week ago. Well, damn, it's hard to sum it all up, but Mardi Gras is pretty amazing, with days of parades, marching bands, costumes, beads, beads and more beads. Beads that will hit you in the face are a sign of good luck, though nest time you should probably pay more attention...or be more drunk. Also, Catherine is awesome. Wait, wait, hold on, what I meant to say was:

Catherine is AWESOME!!!!!!!! Seeing New Orleans helps to at least partially explain her awesomeness. She is the product of an awesome place, therefore... She is a great host in a great city, so much love to her.

The city itself is very interesting: a place trying to reel itself back from destruction, but very much alive with spirit. You can see the visible signs of Katrina all over the place, but you can also tell that this is where jazz was born. I actually got to see a jazz funeral several days after Mardi Gras was over. Though the occasion was a very sad one, marking the violent deaths of an artist and a musician who were loved by their city, the sadness was itself violently confronted by the sheer enthusiasm of the friends and strangers who were there. It was really very beautiful.

And I did get to hear a local band that wasn't Morning 40 Federation and wasn't a brass band and wasn't bluegrass or Appalachian music whose music I really liked: Rotary Downs. We saw them play at a Super Hero party, and they covered Who Loves the Sun? I decided to buy two cd's while I was down there.

. . . . .

I must reiterate my love of Cakeshop. I went to a show there last week, and I always have a great time. This time I tried to finish a piece of cake by myself and ended up eating it at the bar with a stranger. It was a massive slice of cake.

. . . . .

I saw Sparklehorse at Webster Hall and it was good. (No, unfortunately it wasn't amazing, but they do make a pretty restrained kind of music, and I do see about a million shows every two minutes, so what can I expect. It made me happy to see it.) He claimed it was the biggest crowd he'd ever played in front of. It was a sweet thing to say, but my first reaction to that was "Bullshit" but who knows, it could be true. Also I didn't get too drunk because I didn't sneak in any booze. In fact, I illicitly brought in an iced coffee.

. . . . .

Now for some electronic music:

The Tilted Head of Compassion, whose album you can actually download in it's entirety from their website. (I'm not sure if this is a design flaw, or intentional.) The songs are slow to develop, but the waiting is fruitful.

Ben Frost is an Australian making sometimes blissfully ambient, sometimes aggressively fuzzed out noise music. I am listening to his latest album right now, and the first track is breath taking. Also, he is playing at Tonic on Sunday, March 18th.

Corporal Blossom is like cut and paste music, like Negativland or the Cassette Boy, but a sufficiently fucked up enough example of the genre to distinguish itself. They did a Christmas album! A fucked up Christmas album! Seriously, their version of the Little Drummer Boy actually kicks some ass.

Suicide Birds is ambient music from New Jersey. I may have mentioned them before, sorry for repeating. It looks like this person may have abandonned their myspace page, though, or at least not checked back in a hot minute. (In this case a hot minute is a month and change.)

I've mentioned them before, but I just recently purchased albums by Tycho and Low in the Sky. The Tycho album especially has gotten a hell of a lot of replay by both me and my boss. And apparently he's received an award or something from SXSW for his artwork and poster designs. It's Boards of Canada for those who are tired of Boards of Canada. Low in the Sky is kind of like a more upbeat triphop. It's actually a live band, I think, with some electronic elements, like wacky keyboards or whatever, but it works.

I saw Peter Jackson's King Kong the other night and I have to say it: Peter Jackson pisses me off. I never finished watching any of the Lord of the Rings movies because I would start watching them, see the slow motion sequences, hear the superfluous exposition, learn of the irrelevant sub plots, and just give the fuck up. "Economy of style" doesn't exist in his vocabulary. Seriously, it felt to me like Peter Jackson was slapping his directorial dick in my face.

Well, King Kong is just like that, but with more racism.

I was going to get really elaborate on why I think it is so shockingly racist, but I just kept writing and writing and it's getting pretty late here. Let me just put it this way:

When Columbus arrived in the Caribbean, he and his men obliterated the Arawaks on Hispaniola through smallpox, slavery and murder. When the time came for the history books to be written, they left that part out. Instead popular culture stepped in. Peter Jackson tells a story in which our Western culture encounters aboriginals on an isolated island and it is the Westerners that are massacred by the natives. And somewhere along the way he decided to make these violent sub-humans with no redeeming characteristics not just black, but blackface. This is a stereotype that we should be burying and he has dug it up and given it life.

Seriously, fuck you Peter Jackson.