1. Branquias Bajo El Agua, Derribos Arias, Branquias Bajo El Agua 7″, 1982
2. Newsreel, Fad Gadget, Fireside Favorites, 1980
3. Countdown, Kas Product, Try Out, 1981
4. Zu Jung, Zu Alt, X-Mal Deutschland, Incubus Sucubus 12″, 1982
5. Swampland, The Birthday Party, Mutiny/The Bad Seed, 1989
6. Situations, Middle Class, VA – Earcom #3 2×7″, 1979
7. Inventory, Colin Newman, A-Z, 1980
8. Simple Machines, Dancing Cigarettes, 1980-81: The Gulcher Recordings, 1980
9. The Sky Is Blue Again, The Ex, Disturbing Domestic Peace, 1980
10. Isn’t It Interesting How Neutron Bombs Work?, Diagram Brothers, Some Marvels of Modern Science, 1981

you got the wrong bird, tracklist:

1. A Room Lives in Lucy, And Also The Trees, A Retrospective 1983 – 1986, 1986
2. Shadow Of A Doubt, Sonic Youth, Evol, 1991
3. The Void, The Raincoats, The Raincoats, 1979
4. Absentee, The Passions, Michael & Miranda, 1980
5. I’ve Waited Ages, Colin Newman, A-Z, 1980
6. The Order Form (I Want to Order A Pelican), Essential Logic, Beat Rhythm News, 1979
7. Return the Gift, Gang of Four, Peel Sessions, 1981
8. Another Song, Swell Maps, A Trip To Marineville, 1979
9. Ethics, 23 Skidoo, Ethics EP, 1981

I also rescued my dearest friend from his prison at the bottom of a stack of plastic storage bins. He’s on the left, in green.:

His name is Freddy. As you can see we go way back. Yes, it rhymes with teddy — but he’s named after my uncle who sent him to me from Germany before I was born; the very first Lizmas present! I know a lot of Freds and all (but one) are the coolest. But especially this one. (I have to say that because he knows all my secrets.)

Before I forget: here’s a mix to get you in the Lizmas spirit. I hope you listen to it while drinking a cup of unaltered coffee and drumming on your desk with pencils, Liz-style.

23 til 32 mix

1. 1978, Liliput, Kleenex/Liliput, 1993
2. Off Morning, Sort Sol, Dagger & Guitar, 1983
3. This Perfect Day, The Saints, Eternally Yours, 1978
4. That’s When I Reach For My Revolver, Mission of Burma, Signals, Calls, and Marches, 1981
5. Undone, Rowland S. Howard, Teenage Snuff Film, 1999
6. Dark Entries, Bauhaus, 1979-1983: Volume One, 1986
7. Disorder, Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures, 1979
8. Speak My Language, The Cure, Join The Dots: B-Sides & Rarities 1978-2001 [Disc 1], 2004
9. The Strange Boutique, The Monochrome Set, The Strange Boutique, 1980
10. Double Standards, Action Pact, Mercury Theatre: On The Air!, 1983
11. Dark Park Creeping, Mo-Dettes, The Story So Far, 1980
12. Gehry, Babyland, The Finger, 2004
13. Night, Zola Jesus, Stridulum II, 2010
14. Stars, Warpaint, Exquisite Corpse EP, 2009

22 more days of Lizmas shopping and my obnoxious birthday zeal! Here’s my unreasonable wishlist:

• electronic drum kit
• 55 gallon aquarium w/1 fancy goldfish named La Contessa.
• a houseplant that doesn’t require much direct sunlight
• a cup that never runs out of fresh delicious iced tea
• that nail polish gadget the receptionist in Total Recall was using

That’s all. Really.

If you want a moral, a November mix.

1. Storm the Reality Asylum – Rip Rig & Panic, i Am Cold, 1982
2. Push – Brilliant, Limelight Lime-7-001, 1982
3. Soul Deep – Darkside, All That Noise, 1990
4. Sorry, Sorry, Sorry – The Scientists, The Scientists, 1981
5. Black Dwarf – Marc Riley With The Creepers, 4 A’s From Maida Vale 12″, 1985
6. Dot Dash – Wire, Live @ CBGB’s Theatre NY, 1978
7. I’m Coming Over – X , Wild Gift, 1981
8. Suntrapper – The Triffids, In The Pines, 1994
9. From the Top of the Mountain – Dog Faced Hermans, Mental Blocks For All Ages, 1991
10. Why Me – The Passions, Michael & Miranda, 1980
11. Girl with a Gun - Bone Orchard, Jack, 1984
12. Endless Fall – Lydia Lunch & Rowland S. Howard, Shotgun Wedding, 1991

I’ve been spending way too much of my free time watching videos of Rowland S. Howard on YouTube and being bummed out that he’s gone. Like, it’s been almost a year. And while it’s perfectly normal to selfishly be upset that your favorite-whatever will no longer be creating your favorite-whatnots, there’s an end date on the acceptability of this bullshit mourning period, and I’ve gone well past it. But he was what made The Birthday Party so great (this coming from someone who adores Nick Cave, but I’m not going to lie.) And most of Lydia Lunch’s best stuff came from their collaboration. And the same can be said for Nikki Sudden. (More fuel to my strong feeling that collaborative efforts tend to be the best.) Anyway, here I go again dwelling on this.

I think, typical skepticism aside, that I might have met the devil on Friday. At least, that’s my working theory as to how someone who isn’t usually interested in guys became tongue-tied over the hotness of a dude working in the boot department of the army navy store. One minute I’m turning around to answer a “can I help you find something?” and the next I’m unable to finish a sentence and backing away like some kind of nut. Oh well. If you happen to be the smokin’ hot metal dude who works in the boot department of my local surplus store, I want to know your secret. What is it about you? Did you make a sketchy deal with something supernatural? Are you carrying medium-rare steaks on your person?

In related news, I need to find a new army navy store, which is really a bummer because that one is one of the few favorite places from my youth still in business.

What else? Oh yeah, I need to buy a bed and I’m being an indecisive whiner about it. Do I want a sofa bed or a real bed? Do I want a full or a queen? Metal or wood frame? I don’t have answers to any of these questions!

Here are two I like:

They’re … nothing alike. And I could easily post 400 photos of other beds and sofa beds I’m interested in. So what am I even going on here? How do I narrow stuff down? I hate this so much and I bet I get sick of it before my landlords get my room repainted and end up buying the most basic IKEA futon just to be done with it.

Well November, I am thankful to have such stupid problems! Tune in next time for an entry fraught with anxiety over what delicious beer to select on a leisurely night out with my friends.

So I’m writing a screenplay for a horror movie with flat stereotypical dudes as props for my strong female characters and exactly zero rapes. Wasted effort or huge waste of effort?

Eh, we’ll see. I’m really not enjoying writing in screenplay format though and might turn it into a manuscript. OR I might just forget about it in a week until I watch the next awful bit of schlocky bullshit that makes me want to throw things. If I even get into what’s set me off this time I will never get to the next order of business.

The next order of business: Shows. Holy crap have I seen a lot of good bands since I moved. Saw A Frames/Golden Error/Hot Guts last Thursday, the xx/Warpaint/Zola Jesus on Monday, Swans the week before, and Pissed Jeans a couple weeks ago. Grinderman in NYC is looking good, and bunch of other interesting stuff is heading through Philly before the end of the year. I need to start carrying earplugs because shows just happen it seems, and I’m never quite prepared.

Taking photos at shows is either too awkward or less interesting than watching the bands or not allowed at all. The venue for the xx show prohibited photography so only select media types and rule-breaking assholes got photos. I’m not sure which group this one was pilfered from because it was forwarded to me. But look: my friend and housemate, J, scored some sweet dead center Row A tickets:

Fancy!

Hello, Internet! Fancy meeting you here.

I’m in a weird mood, and also back in Vermont, uh, recharging. Yeah. The weirdness isn’t bummed-outness. It’s more like, now my feelings about returning to my hometown have been confirmed (yesssss!), and my expectation of it not being, like, immediate gratification have been validated. I’m kind of relieved that it’s going to take more time and effort because if it hadn’t I’d be huddled under a (thin) blanket or possibly a sheet, with my jaw clenched waiting for everything to fall apart and land on me. The weird mood is about me being correct and trying to decide if it is worse to be correct about this or just always correct in general and, so, rarely pleasantly surprised? Maybe a “bit of luck” would’ve been nice? But again, also terrifying. Well good for me! I’ve got something to work toward, and I’m much happier when I’m focused on something.

So, I was too busy enjoying my time to document it. I’m terrible at taking photos while things are happening, so I pretty much have nothing in that department. I drank a ton of good beer and enjoyed a lot of good hangs. My friends are all charming and adorable and hilarious. (Probably more so than your charming, adorable, hilarious friends but I can’t prove it, and you can’t disprove it.) I fell in love with my friend’s baby, and a St. Bernard another friend is dog-sitting. (GUYS! I got to walk a ST. BERNARD. Not a euphemism.)

I’ve been doing a lot of writing! Well, obviously not here. I’m also drawing again which is good because two years ago I spent way too much money on a fancy set of pens and have felt guilty about it ever since. However! I’ve convinced myself that things would turn out better if I was using my table and not balancing things on my knees in bed, which led to my new tightly held conviction that I can’t accomplish anything decent or worthwhile until I move my table over next to the window. This requires rearranging my room –the room I don’t want to be in, in the state I’m trying to get out of. Waste of time! But if I don’t work through the extreme procrastination I will keep blaming the table’s distance from the window for my inability to ink these sketches, instead of admitting I’m a lazy baby.

Oh babies. I think I’m reaching some middle age milestone where my emotional outbursts are no longer limited to a regularly scheduled portion of the month? I’ve decided that I’m unsubscribing from the Zooborns feed because the sight of baby elephants and orangs and newly hatched turtles is too much for me. I see them and my heart aches. Growing pains, like the Grinch? I don’t know. I do know that the devil is truly just a metaphorical construct because if he were a real thing, the blood of one of you, my nearest and dearest, would be on my hands while I was enjoying a new life with my new baby elephant roommate. Sorry, but I’m not going to lie. Maybe I should get a turtle once I’m settled somewhere.

Oh look, another internet mixtape: (Fifteen tracks including music by Swell Maps, Maximum Joy and Colin Newman.)

First, this new Wuthering Heights cover makes my heart hurt:

I can’t even. Just. Really?

Dangnabbit. I lost my entire train of thought and this just became a list.

Things that make me happy, July 2K10 edition:

• almond tea
• all the awesome dogs that live in my town
• finding Kobo Abe’s The Box Man at the used bookstore
• Kate Bush videos on youtube
• the sweet brush in Sally Hansen’s Insta-dry polish (& blazing blue)
• Sebastian Bach as as Gil in Lane’s band on Gilmore Girls

There’s a lot more. I’m in a really good mood lately. I think I am in love with this summer. Is that allowed or is it like when lions lay down with lambs? Fickle, fickle kid, no?

Here, have some tunes –perhaps to fold clothes to. A mostly new wave mix:

I have an elaborate, likely Skinner Pigeon-ly, system for getting optimal Netflix recommendations. My interpretation of “like” is loose to say the least. I might hate a movie but like the idea of it, and so I want similar movies with the same themes less poorly executed, to pop up on my lists. And maybe I liked something but my only reason is, say, that I’ll watch anything featuring Julian Sands. (See also: Helena Bonham Carter.)  If I clicked “hated it” for everything I hated, my recommendations would be nothing but director’s cuts or full screen releases of movies I’ve already watched. No really, this was what started my obsessive ratings-tweaking.

You know who else I find so endearing that I’d watch anything she was in? Melissa Joan Hart, the most underrated actor I can think of at 5-something AM. Oh hey, Julian Sands and MJH both played witches. Maybe I have a type?

I should probably devote some time to implement a complex series of Google Alerts filters that will keep me from missing out on all the latest developments in awesome. (They do get complicated. I finally just got my “anteater” alert to stop emailing me little league stats.)

Case in point: I had no idea Skunk Anansie was back together!

It is not TELEPHONE, but I LIKE IT.

You know what else I like? Except not really? How these shoes I lovelovelove finally go on sale, and they’re no longer in my size. I am linking to them (Aldo’s Ambrosio) because I feel like someone should enjoy them even if we weren’t meant to be together. This is Very Mature Adult of me; I am definitely the kid who would buy something at the thrift store that wasn’t my size just because it was too me and then I would send it off to friends who lived far, far away.

I walked away from these in gray (!) in the store for $70 (?!), and then again in the outlet for $50. And I didn’t keep good tabs on them online because I honestly don’t care about shoes unless I really need to replace some. But now I’m having non-buyer’s remorse.

OH! In the mere minutes that I’ve been writing this the gray just became an option again, but still not in my size. Y U Do, Aldo?

Is this what it sounds like when doves cry?

No joke, really. Small town New England –maple flavored everything, ski reports on the news, people leaving their cars unlocked and running in the grocery store parking lot. There’s been snow or freezing drizzle every day since I got here and I suspect that will be the case until sometime in August maybe, when a moose sees her shadow or something? And yet somehow there’s still enough green to make it postcard perfect and clearly better than Pennsylvania. Also? The grocery store sells beer and wine. No contest.

Plus, six of my top seven favorite relatives live here. AND! And! and! I’m right down the street from a library and not stuck in an office during its hours of operation. In fact I’m not stuck in an office AT ALL. Well, I have a fake office that is also known as my bedroom. (It’s got a window –a thrilling dream come true.)  I knew my job was making me miserable but I didn’t realize the extent to which it kept me immobilized by depression. Four and a half years of wasted time.

Well that’s old business. I’ve got some new things in the works; getting serious about freelance writing, opening an online store, and a fun project with Jen of deliberatepixel is about to begin. More details on that later!

Here’s that January mix I promised last post: (Maybe NSFW, unless you work in a cuss-friendly environment like me.)

A tad more upbeat, eh?