So 2008

I haven't read a single book since 2007. I've been struggling with The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, but who am I kidding. I'm not getting anywhere. Sometimes I feel like I might just have a problem with the Nobel Prize Winners. The Pulitzer Prize winners I usually really like. I don't understand what's wrong with me. The week before I found out that Lessing won I stumbled upon this really angry book review of her book, The Fifth Child, that I had written when I was in high school. For English class. It ends with "Nothing good ever happened in this book, it just kept getting worse and worse all the time". Yeah. I was a real wordsmith.

So because I don't have any books to talk about I'm just going to post some songs and talk about them instead.

Helvetia- Old New Bicycle

I stole this from Said the Gramophone, and I can't stop listening to it. I seriously don't even care about the singing, it's all muffled nice whiny words, all I hear is the super duper happy guitar. If I could play the guitar, I would just play stuff like that all the time. All the time.

Daniel Johnston- Fly Me to the Moon

In my opinion this is one of the most beautiful Daniel Johnston songs, and I discovered it just recently. It's from The Lost Recordings Vol. 2. The various layers of voice and music makes it sound really sad, confused and ghostly. It breaks my heart every time, but the weird little Jackson Five-ish "Moo-moo-moon-ooh oh-oh-oh" at the end always makes me feel better.

Duke Ellington and His Orchestra- Love is Like A Cigarette

This is a very very elegant song. Makes me wish I haven't started quitting smoking. I have, you know.

Of Montreal- Jimmy ( M.I.A. cover)

Next week I'm going to start writing about the Experimental Music and Sound Art night-class I have started taking. It will be very educational for us all, I'm sure.

No comment necessary

Jesus in the Sky with Diamonds

Well it's 2008. Yep. And you know what? I still don't have a jetpack. Nope. I take the fucking bus to work.....In 2008.

Not THIS:



But THIS:



Mother fucking bus.

However, I do often ride the subway, and if I wear a space helmet during the ride it's pretty interstellar. Also, according to Oh Gizmo!, jetpacks are "old news" as "rocket belts" have been around since the 1960's. They're just really impractical and dangerous. So that's cool.

But enough about the lies of modernity, here's some music to help wrap up the holiday season. All of these songs keep the Christ in Christ-Mass, and show that Jesus, never far from the lips of pop musicians, still makes a good song title or band namesake after all these millennia.

Rebel Jew - Silver Jews

Frequency - The Jesus & Mary Chain

Jesus - The Velvet Underground

They Hung Him on a Cross (Demo) - Nirvana

Spiritual - Johnny Cash

Change is a Comin'

Being the only remaining blog member to still be in the United States I feel obligated to keep our readers and my fellow blog members up to date on the 2008 primary.

I'd like to say that I feel less cynical about American politics than ever before in my life. I'm falling for Barack Obama's pretty face as a symbol for change just like I expect the rest of the country will as I see him using his momentum in winning Iowa to easily beat Clinton and Edwards to win the democratic primary. Hopefully he won't invade Iran as soon as he's sworn in, dupping us all once again. The advisors he's already selected have a pretty common and sketchy foriegn policy record. But I'm a believer and am actually pretty exctited about the prospect of Barack Obama hopefully becoming the next president of of the U.S.

Hillary needs to do something quick to curb this momentum. You can watch Hillary Clinton's emotional moment in an attempt to get sympathy and relate to voters in preparation for tommorow's New Hampshire's primary. Many think with Hillary's impeccable resume, the only thing keeping her from running away with the democratic ticket is her inability to relate to voters on a personal level. I see her losing to Obama (don't count out Edwards) tommorow and hopefully McCain winning on the republican side. Anyone other than Romney (thank god he's losing votes for being a mormon) or Giuliani (who will instantly invade Iran)winning I think is great. Of course I'd vote for Ron Paul over any democrat other than Kucinich.

To make up for the seriousness of this post I'll finish with a couple of hip new musicians I've recently found out about.

That One Guy - obviously this is all made by one guy with one instrument which looks like a couple of pipes duct taped together with strings on them and wires and gadgets attached to them. His live show was pretty fucking sweet; he hits the strings with either a bow or random other stuff to make his unique instrument sound.

Imam Baildi - Mixes old greek tunes to make some of the most out-of-this-world music in my opinion. He also has a seperate 12" promotional myspace page with the same song mixed with various hip-hop artists.