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Glow Sticks on Will It Blend?

Knowing precisely what their consumers and the rest of the world would want to see, this company records crazy things being thrown into a blender. An incredibly durable blender. So elementary and wonderfully pleasing. There’s even a space on their website where you can suggest things to blend.

Other events of consequence have been on my radar recently, but I can’t really remember what any of them are. Random bits of fascinating news information that caught my eye. Such a strange place, this world.

Then I’m sorry for that. Beyond being a talented actor, my admiration for Owen Wilson stems primarily from his abilities as a writer and my general affection for the beautiful films he has co-written with Wes Anderson.

It must be so difficult for his family to see the information being disseminated about the situation. When you’re suicidally depressed, one of the things I sincerely doubt you want to hear is how everyone thought you were so happy, how you have so many reasons to be happy. I don’t want to say too much about it, just that I hope he is able to recuperate in a relatively quiet atmosphere.

People seem to have difficulty accepting the idea that depression can be caused by a chemical imbalance and that you may want to kill yourself no matter how ‘good’ your life seems. That’s part of why depression sucks so much, obviously.

The disdainful response that many people are having to this specific situation has made me think of the poem Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson. There’s some works of art that repeatedly come up during the course of your life, things that you’re extremely glad you were exposed to, and for me this poem is one of them.

“So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.”

I’m really shocked that it’s already the end of August. I love Autumn, and there are parts of winter that I love, but I always get depressed during the winter. As though my body wants to go into hibernation. I know that this is not a strange phenomenon, but it gets very exhausting.

Someone said to me the other day, “Remember when you were young and summer used to last forever?” Yes. Very much so, possibly because I’m still fairly young. I wonder if that sort of experience is ever duplicated as you age. That would definitely give me something to look forward to.

I went to see Nickel Creek with Fiona Apple in Central Park yesterday. I was generally impressed with the way the whole thing was set up other than the fact that, as a non-extremely tall person, it was very hard to see the performers. That killed me. I spent almost the whole time standing on my tip toes. I’ve wanted to see Fiona Apple perform ever since I got Tidal and part of the fun of seeing her perform is seeing her dance on stage - flailing about wildly, periodically hitting herself and pouring herself into the music.

Before going, I didn’t know the gist of the tour was that Nickel Creek and Fiona were performing together. When I first found this out, the idea seemed disappointing to me because I assumed it would minimize the amount of Fiona I got to see. Until last night, I also had never listened to Nickel Creek, despite being both a country and bluegrass fan.

This was one of the most entertaining and memorable shows I have ever been to. Nickel Creek is a warm, congenial band in which every member is a high caliber performer. There’s a sister/brother fiddler/guitar picker combination (Sara Watkins and Sean Watkins, respectively), the Mandolin player Chris Thile, and the current bassist Mark Schatz. Sara, Chris, and Sean all sing lead on different songs. I love bluegrass music and that love is amplified when the band on stage loves playing bluegrass music. They played their instruments expressively, they harmonized beautifully, and their whole show had the tone of a freewheeling, open experience while still having the edge of an incredibly professional performance. They played for 2 1/2 hours. I can now easily be considered an official Nickel Creek fan. They were great. There is no doubt in my mind that if the band members separate for good, each member will individually produce great music.

The way the show functioned in relation to Fiona Apple was like a special treat for avid Fiona Apple fans. Nickel Creek performed for about 45 minutes and then Fiona came out to join them. They performed a few of her songs before taking a short 20-minute intermission. Hearing Fiona Apple songs interpreted in a Bluegrass style - hearing the performers transfer each song to their string instruments from her standard piano - was fascinating and uniquely satisfying. Their last song before intermission was Limp from When the Pawn…. It may have been my favorite song of hers that they performed that evening. One of the aspects of that song that I always loved is that it’s so unapologetically angry. She sang it with significant anger and verve. I adore her.

Some of the other really popular Fiona songs they performed last night were Extraordinary Machine, Paper Bag, Waltz (Better Than Fine), Not About Love, Criminal, and Fast As You Can. She was, I can only assume, at the top of her game because every performance was treasurable. The covers were amazing. They closed the show with a priceless rendition of the 1926 song “Tonight You Belong to Me”. Favorite moment of the whole evening. Apparently you can see her sing this song with other people on the Extraordinary Machine dvd. You can also see it here.

Not only would I highly recommend every music fan buy tickets to this show, I would go so far as to say it’s one of those rare moments in music history when two bands come together to create a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon that transcends the normal quality of what fans get to see on a tour. I’m extremely glad I had the opportunity to see it. Go if you can.

Here’s another worthwhile cover from the club where they all hob-knob and play in L.A. Enjoy.
Fiona Apple performs “River, Stay Away From My Door”

Photos from their tour are available at the official Nickel Creek website.

The guy who took a lot of those photographs has an interesting website too: Acoustic Images Online

I don’t really enjoy Feministe, but there is an excellent post on their blog titled, “Criticizing the things you love”. As a pop-culture junkie and someone who doesn’t like ignoring the “minor” things that degrade something wonderful, I can really identify with the author’s feelings.

It’s an eternal struggle - when is it o.k. to overlook something that stands out as sexist, racist, stupid, or objectionable? How guilty should I feel for liking Speedy Gonzalez? Everyone has a different answer and not all of them are right. I liked her explanation; you don’t keep quiet about it. You point out what you like and you point out what you don’t like. There is precious little in this world that can be loved unconditionally.

“And you think Rockford Files is cool - But there are some things that you would change - If it were up to you”

- Ben Folds Five

A boy I knew growing up murdered his x-girlfriend the other day. While I was reading an article about the incident, I remembered wondering what became of him once I had moved away. I didn’t know him very well until I was forced to sit across from him in class. He didn’t know me before that either, but he immediately keyed into the fact that I was an upstanding goody-two-shoes and that, without a lot of effort, he could get a reaction out of me.

Most of the time he wasn’t mean to me. He wanted my attention and he would say or do whatever he thought would work to get it. His way of engaging me was through harassment - the time-tested technique many adolescent boys use to get girls to pay attention to them. Sometimes he could hold a civil conversation; sometimes he couldn’t; but I used to talk to him and periodically he would open up and tell me things about himself.

He grew up in a rich/upper-middle-class white neighborhood. He was fascinated with violence and gangster movies. Once he told me that his dream was to run off to New York City and join the mob. He had a very short attention span and would become antsy and distracted very easily. When he was in a good mood, he was hilarious and charming. When he was in a bad mood, he was cruel and abusive. He wasn’t stupid but his grades were poor. He got thrown out of class at least once a week. He would alternate between having violent outbursts and lethargic moments where he could hardly stay awake. Maybe our teacher sat him with me because she thought I would be a tempering influence on him or something. My good-girl status was often getting me punished like that.

Last week, this same kid - the kid who once jumped up on our table in the middle of class and shouted, “Praise Jesus!” - beat, strangled, and stabbed the woman he once dated. He left her body in the bathtub of their apartment, his fingerprints smeared in the blood along the wall. This is what allowed the police to immediately connect him to the murder and arrest him shortly after.

Even when he was a kid, everyone knew he needed help. That was back when he was merely dreaming of becoming a violent criminal; back when someone could have attempted to stop the destructive, tragic path his life was on. I wonder if it would have even made a difference.

I think about the person he was when he was doing well, when he was happy, and how much potential that person had. I think about how he was constantly getting in trouble and it resulted in nothing. No one ever wanted to deal with him. He always seemed to be punished in the same way, in a useless, cyclical fashion, even when his inappropriate behavior escalated. I remember thinking many of these things at the time, too, but hoping he would ‘grow out of it’ despite the fact that there was no reason to believe that he would. Now a well-meaning girl who probably saw a lot of the same things I saw in him is dead.

What a complete waste.

I should post some of the spam comments I’ve received in the past 24 hours here so that people can see how hateful and repulsive they are, but it doesn’t really seem necessary. You could probably guess. “cunt” this and “rape” that, child porn fantasy fulfillment stories, disturbing images, random empty spam material, etc. etc. All this because of what I said below. Wow.

The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.

- Virginia Woolf

Blogging While Female

I just wanted to highlight the abuse that this woman has received for having the nerve to defend abused women, condemn pornography, and offer women a space where they can speak freely without fear of retribution.

I can’t think of a better way to give credence to the arguments of radical feminists.

EDIT: It makes me incredibly sad that this is one of the top posts on WordPress.

I read an article that really irritated me regarding the concept of the ‘emotional affair’, i.e. cheating on your spouse in the form of emotional support from another. The whole idea of the emotional affair is exploited to make women feel guilty about having profound personal relationships outside of their marriage.

I’m not saying that forming emotional connections to someone else can’t be hurtful to your spouse or evolve into something that becomes a full fledged physical affair, but I loathe this idea that a married woman has to cut herself off from the world; that every moment of satisfaction and fulfillment she receives should be through her husband and her husband alone; that having a valuable friend outside of her husband is something she should feel guilty about.

Oh society, with your mixed messages and lose-lose ultimatums - you really have it out for girls, don’t you?

Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums being among my favorite movies and Wes Anderson among my favorite directors, here is the trailer link for his upcoming film The Darjeeling Limited.

The Darjeeling Limited, in theatres September 29

It’s about three brothers traveling through India. As one would expect, I’m ardently looking forward to its release.