Friday, December 19, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
North Carolina
Here's something I was trying to explain in Laundromatinee about NC:
There's such an excitement in NC right now. We've been so proud of our music family there--everybody's so supportive--not competitive--ultimate bohemian dream come true type shit. It's really magical there. Friends who've moved away say they can't figure out why other towns aren't like ours. Why nothing is as easy as it is in NC. I can tell you stories. Super romantic fall-in-love stories just fecundated with nostalgia for something we still have--you know what I mean? It's so special and we all know it that we're already nostalgic for it.
Full article here
There's such an excitement in NC right now. We've been so proud of our music family there--everybody's so supportive--not competitive--ultimate bohemian dream come true type shit. It's really magical there. Friends who've moved away say they can't figure out why other towns aren't like ours. Why nothing is as easy as it is in NC. I can tell you stories. Super romantic fall-in-love stories just fecundated with nostalgia for something we still have--you know what I mean? It's so special and we all know it that we're already nostalgic for it.
Full article here
January Shows
These go on sale just in time for Christmas...
1.14 Baltimore Ottobar
1.15 Philadelphia Johnny Brenda's
1.16 NYC Bowery Ballroom
1.17 Boston Middle East
1.24 Chapel Hill Cat's Cradle
GET TICKETS
1.14 Baltimore Ottobar
1.15 Philadelphia Johnny Brenda's
1.16 NYC Bowery Ballroom
1.17 Boston Middle East
1.24 Chapel Hill Cat's Cradle
GET TICKETS
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Thanksgiving
Logan was on the phone to his family when he said, "Well, I gotta go, we're getting ready to stop here for Thanksgiving dinner at Cracker Barrel" and Ivan just dropped his head into his hands.
We may have all gotten wrapped up in some impulse shopping, as you can see, but it was Ivan who dropped around $100 on CDs from their gift shop.
Yeah, I know.
I was worried too.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Merge's 20 Greatest Albums
Paste Magazine picked Birds Make Good Neighbors to be one of the top 20 Merge Records albums of all time.
Go HERE to read about that.
It's a big deal over here in our camp. Really special.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Jonah Ray (Part II)
Jonah Ray is performing with us in San Fran and LA. You have to see his stand up. Here's something really beautiful:
Guess Who (HD Final Cut) from Peter Atencio on Vimeo.
Guess Who (HD Final Cut) from Peter Atencio on Vimeo.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
St. Paul
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Mashey Mash
Dudes. This is BLOWING my mind. It's really good.
T Pain + Rosebuds + Lil Wayne.
LISTEN HERE
DOWNLOAD HERE
Courtesy The Hood Internet
Monday, October 13, 2008
New Parents
This is Zeno Gill assembling the crib:
Zeno recorded the Unwind EP for us and being in the studio with him is, well, it's kind of a therapeutic experience. He's so nurturing and excited about experimentation--he generates creativity. He lets us come in and bang on his piano, sing and yell, lay in the yard, try drum parts that seem like they're going nowhere (and years later they end up being "Hello Darlin") and just basically whatever doesn't make sense, he's okay with trying. And that's what we need. A lot. So, I knew when he and Christine decided to adopt a child they would be amazing parents and I started day dreaming right away about being a little kid in this musical and creative household. Christine is a bad-ass designer and the smartest woman you know who has already done everything so anything you want to talk about happens to be her area of special expertise. She lived a hundred fast and exciting lives in New York as a designer, she saw every band, she walked around the park in sharp black boots with hot chocolate, she found a house in Durham and decided to get all involved in the town's renaissance, she sat in two inches of dirty water--hand-chipping the nasty 50s flooring off her home's future-beautiful hard woods, she took old Rosebuds by the hand and showed us how design is a part of everything the band is, she has parties where she puts creative types in the same room with other creative types and watches them strike it up, she has had 7 backbones, she usually goes in all black, she has great jewelry, secret rooms of clothing racks from when "oh, yeah, I used to have a store" --no big deal just a kick-ass boutique which was one of many lives, she's started magazines and movements, always teaching us about good design and good living and now, NOW!, she's a mommy too.
They're parents y'all. Wow. We've been waiting so long for this and now it's finally happening!
Here is their adoption story:
www.gilladoption.blogspot.com
Zeno recorded the Unwind EP for us and being in the studio with him is, well, it's kind of a therapeutic experience. He's so nurturing and excited about experimentation--he generates creativity. He lets us come in and bang on his piano, sing and yell, lay in the yard, try drum parts that seem like they're going nowhere (and years later they end up being "Hello Darlin") and just basically whatever doesn't make sense, he's okay with trying. And that's what we need. A lot. So, I knew when he and Christine decided to adopt a child they would be amazing parents and I started day dreaming right away about being a little kid in this musical and creative household. Christine is a bad-ass designer and the smartest woman you know who has already done everything so anything you want to talk about happens to be her area of special expertise. She lived a hundred fast and exciting lives in New York as a designer, she saw every band, she walked around the park in sharp black boots with hot chocolate, she found a house in Durham and decided to get all involved in the town's renaissance, she sat in two inches of dirty water--hand-chipping the nasty 50s flooring off her home's future-beautiful hard woods, she took old Rosebuds by the hand and showed us how design is a part of everything the band is, she has parties where she puts creative types in the same room with other creative types and watches them strike it up, she has had 7 backbones, she usually goes in all black, she has great jewelry, secret rooms of clothing racks from when "oh, yeah, I used to have a store" --no big deal just a kick-ass boutique which was one of many lives, she's started magazines and movements, always teaching us about good design and good living and now, NOW!, she's a mommy too.
They're parents y'all. Wow. We've been waiting so long for this and now it's finally happening!
Here is their adoption story:
www.gilladoption.blogspot.com
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Words
Much is said of what is spiritual, and of spirituality, in this, that, or the other--in objects, expressions.--For me, I see no object, no expression, no animal, no tree, no art, no book, but I see, from morning to night, and from night to morning, the spiritual.--Bodies are all spiritual.--All words are spiritual--nothing is more spiritual than words.--Whence are they? along how many thousands and tens of thousands of years have they come? those eluding, fluid, beautiful, fleshless, realities, Mother, Father, Water, Earth, Me, This, Soul, Tongue, House, Fire.
--Walt Whitman
from The Neglected Walt Whitman: Vital Texts
Ed. Sam Abrams
--Walt Whitman
from The Neglected Walt Whitman: Vital Texts
Ed. Sam Abrams
Thursday, October 09, 2008
I'll walk out there with you.
Filmmaker Tim Kiernan made this great one-shot video of a family/friend pig pickin' we played in Raleigh.
The Rosebuds - Get Up Get Out (live) from tk on Vimeo.
The Rosebuds - Get Up Get Out (live) from tk on Vimeo.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Hold Hands and Fight
This chick is brave. And she has stolen my heart. Not because of how I'm self-involved and how these are my lyrics and they're like, pretty much all over her body and wow it's crazy to have a fan like that. That's not it at all. Not even it.
She wrote that she and her partner got these together. And THAT... I totally understood. If anybody knows the feeling of what it's like to live the lyrics of this song, it's me. So, I understand everything. These lyrics do mean a lot to me--more than other songs--and I relate to this choice. The tattoo is the badge, which is only a signifier, but the need... THIS is what it's like to be a human in an absurd world.
One which makes outrageous claims on us. And yet we still have our ability to create partnerships. NEED them.
Jasmine
Push It from Kelly Rosebud on Vimeo.
I found this today and it made me so happy to see. Jasmine the Amazing Dog records a cover of "Push It."
There are mp3s of this cover floating around if you want it on yer tape thing radio, but I'm too lazy to find it right now. Soon though.
SPIN
Listen up y'all. Just because we are Spin.com's Artist of the Day doesn't mean we have changed. We still put our Raleigh Denim Jeans on one leg at a time, only now I bedazzle them with real gems. No, not mostly diamonds--I'm not an asshole. Some rubies but yeah, okay, mostly diamonds. But everything else is the same. Except we get written about in Spin (most people don't, just saying). That, and I'm half way to Rio as I write this. But, everything else...
SPIN ARTICLE HERE
p.s. Rio still the place fancy people go?
SPIN ARTICLE HERE
p.s. Rio still the place fancy people go?
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Dodge, My Old Kentucky
My Old Kentucky Blog... You rule the hardest. You love the band, and for that I'm thankful, but you are a good man too and smart and fun to hang out with. I loved the sirius radio session we did and the Hot Freaks party and the Indy show, and hanging out with you and the little lady downstairs, and just can't wait to go again! But really, with all the new Life Like news happening, you might be surprised that it was THIS article that made me smile. You're funny.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Independent
We are on the cover of the Independent! That really feels like such a big honor. I mean, it IS a big honor but it feels, I don't know... validating? It's our home paper! That's a big deal to us.
Check out the article HERE
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Rocky Baby
So, I'm almost all the way into living in New York--manicuring myself to astonish the comedy world, in a good way this time--and I like Greenpoint. As a neighborhood to live in. There's a little records and coffe shop (2 in 1) and there's a couple friends from Raleigh just down the way, and now there's this guy. He is Rocky. His owner is a leathery old man who has three gold chains, all three with different kinds of chunky little eagle pendants. He said, "That's Rocky. But call him Rocky Baby. He's the neighborhood mascot."
So I have composed the following poem for him:
Rocky Baby you live in Greenpoint and have for two years but I didn't know you then until I needed to get coffee and a cup of tomato soup and found you and said I know why I bought this one kind of phone with the camera now because I love you to pieces you are the cutest baby and I've SEEN boxers I have an old boxer Jasmine in NC and she's got long-suffering eyes and a white face because she's 14 and i did have two others and one time that skinny little one we stole/liberated from a dog fight guy in Charleston who went to live with zealots who called him Ezekial but its none of my business and then still another boxer at my grandma's neighbor's who belonged to Nelson's granddaughter and he lives in a tiny fence cage situation which is, I assure you, no good and but you, YOU, are the prettiest, handsomest guy of all and you remind me of Jasmine whom I didn't name since she was a rescue kinda too but who really is a Jasmine now that I know how delicate she is and I miss her believe me but you... You have a square face and didn't you know you are a bull dog and its in your nature to fight bulls I guess but I can't imagine you would though you never know a person all the way since everybody has their compulsions like what if you saw a bull right now on this street you might want to fight him or like get to know him and pretend to be best friends with him the way young girls do their boyfriend's other female friends maybe but you're not a tricky guy that way I can tell you are just a cute guy who likes girls or anybody probably but you seem to really like me which is working out since I am all crush now, like deep deep crush.
So I have composed the following poem for him:
Rocky Baby you live in Greenpoint and have for two years but I didn't know you then until I needed to get coffee and a cup of tomato soup and found you and said I know why I bought this one kind of phone with the camera now because I love you to pieces you are the cutest baby and I've SEEN boxers I have an old boxer Jasmine in NC and she's got long-suffering eyes and a white face because she's 14 and i did have two others and one time that skinny little one we stole/liberated from a dog fight guy in Charleston who went to live with zealots who called him Ezekial but its none of my business and then still another boxer at my grandma's neighbor's who belonged to Nelson's granddaughter and he lives in a tiny fence cage situation which is, I assure you, no good and but you, YOU, are the prettiest, handsomest guy of all and you remind me of Jasmine whom I didn't name since she was a rescue kinda too but who really is a Jasmine now that I know how delicate she is and I miss her believe me but you... You have a square face and didn't you know you are a bull dog and its in your nature to fight bulls I guess but I can't imagine you would though you never know a person all the way since everybody has their compulsions like what if you saw a bull right now on this street you might want to fight him or like get to know him and pretend to be best friends with him the way young girls do their boyfriend's other female friends maybe but you're not a tricky guy that way I can tell you are just a cute guy who likes girls or anybody probably but you seem to really like me which is working out since I am all crush now, like deep deep crush.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace dead at 46.
If the smartest man alive hangs himself, what chance do the rest of us have?
I am heartbroken.
If the smartest man alive hangs himself, what chance do the rest of us have?
I am heartbroken.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Letter to Frank Black #4
Dear Frank Black,
How are things with you? Don't tell me. I am interested mainly in what I imagine is up with you. Someone told me where you live and I was all, "I don't want to know! Don't tell me anything else!" He said Portland, not, like, your actual address or anything. But now I have to know you live in Portland. Just don't tell me anything else. It's messing everything up for my letters to you I think. What would be the word for when you've made someone a figment of your own imagined self. Figmentized?
I am leaving North Carolina for a month to live in New York and be a different kind of person you know like actaully start something else again. Like all the comedy I've been doing but I don't want to tell you about all that. Not that I think you'll show up at one of my shows (but just so you know, that can't happen okay?) but because I have so many plans and some of them are quite naive. But I can't think about how I'll remember the plans if I fast forward to writing you in 15 years because who knows how they'll shake out. But I think I know how I want them to. So they are plans.
What are you a Pisces? I bet you are. I'm Gemini. Ruler of the Earth. Not of dirt, but, of the planet Earth. Can you believe that? You are ruler of the ocean. So, technically, you're of my world but we're different. See? You rule something that is a part of me, right, the primordial part, but not the rest of it. So, there's probably a lot you couldn't know about me. And I can't understand how you swim all the time, or float, your feet not ever on anything. You can surely touch the ground, and live within the earth, but only as a part of your own insulation. And you are all muse, according to the books. I don't even know what that means.
Love,
Kelly
How are things with you? Don't tell me. I am interested mainly in what I imagine is up with you. Someone told me where you live and I was all, "I don't want to know! Don't tell me anything else!" He said Portland, not, like, your actual address or anything. But now I have to know you live in Portland. Just don't tell me anything else. It's messing everything up for my letters to you I think. What would be the word for when you've made someone a figment of your own imagined self. Figmentized?
I am leaving North Carolina for a month to live in New York and be a different kind of person you know like actaully start something else again. Like all the comedy I've been doing but I don't want to tell you about all that. Not that I think you'll show up at one of my shows (but just so you know, that can't happen okay?) but because I have so many plans and some of them are quite naive. But I can't think about how I'll remember the plans if I fast forward to writing you in 15 years because who knows how they'll shake out. But I think I know how I want them to. So they are plans.
What are you a Pisces? I bet you are. I'm Gemini. Ruler of the Earth. Not of dirt, but, of the planet Earth. Can you believe that? You are ruler of the ocean. So, technically, you're of my world but we're different. See? You rule something that is a part of me, right, the primordial part, but not the rest of it. So, there's probably a lot you couldn't know about me. And I can't understand how you swim all the time, or float, your feet not ever on anything. You can surely touch the ground, and live within the earth, but only as a part of your own insulation. And you are all muse, according to the books. I don't even know what that means.
Love,
Kelly
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Good Guy
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Little Kitten
Yesterday we heard a little kitten crying and just yelling--like he was hurt or scared. So we found him in a shed all alone. He saw Ivan and jumped and ran to the woods. Then he came back and started hanging out in a flower pot under the back steps. And he cried and cried all night. He's so wild though. He looks like Rusty from Squidbillies.
We called friends to try to figure out what the right thing to do would be and but nobody wanted to get involved because as soon as you have a plan, you're the one in charge and next thing you know, you own a kitten.
And we definitely do not want a cat. We tour and there's just...
Then early this morning he started crying and crying under my window and so we went out and he jumped and ran under the house. Then he started crying from under there. So I meowed back to him and he stuck his head out like, "What was that!?" and then...
We called friends to try to figure out what the right thing to do would be and but nobody wanted to get involved because as soon as you have a plan, you're the one in charge and next thing you know, you own a kitten.
And we definitely do not want a cat. We tour and there's just...
Then early this morning he started crying and crying under my window and so we went out and he jumped and ran under the house. Then he started crying from under there. So I meowed back to him and he stuck his head out like, "What was that!?" and then...
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Reading Update: Infinite Jest
I just started reading this 10-year anniversary copy of Infinite Jest (with a foreword by Dave Eggers) and instead of doing a post-read entry, let's try an experiment... If you have read this or if you want to read this with me this summer then go HERE and let's make bets on who will finish this insane monster. Have you seen this thing?!
I recommend it if you liked Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius or Confederacy of Dunces... Shit like that.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Tim Lytvinenko
This is Tim Lytvinenko.
Tim is an amazing photographer but I'll get into that in a bit. To describe him is an exercise in deep thinking. To know him is so easy because he's a fun and lovable guy, but to understand him is wonderfully just out of reach. He's complex as shit! And smarter than everyone else too, which is why I like having him around. Not to figure things out for us (which he does a lot) but mostly because it's fun for me trying to keep up with him. He's way ahead. But in the direction you weren't even looking. And there are a ton of weird little surprises like, for example, he can solve a Rubic's cube in less than 3 minutes. Every time.
But his photography...
I don't know. It teaches you things about yourself. Usually when I look at photos of myself, I think, "Oh, that's good, I look pretty in that one. Oh, that's no good, I don't look pretty in that one." Last year he travelled with us and shot the tour and then, later, he presented me with a book he'd handmade of photos he thought I should have. And I was casually flipping through and came upon one in particular that totally arrested me. I stopped moving and breathing for a second. I needed all my energy to understand it.
I won't say what the content was because it's so personal, but when I saw it, I understood so many many things. So many things about myself but also about how things work. And it wasn't conceptual. It was just real. And then I was a different person.
And so Tim's photos mean so much to me. And there's more to understand than I can see so I go back to them all the time and get new stories. And I think, it's so easy to know Tim but the understanding... Here it is on paper--proof of complex thought and a reality normal people like me can't see. He has to show you.
This is his blog:
TimLyt.blogspot.com
You'll see that he's got other eyes.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Montreal
We are drunk on romance language and good coffee.
I saw a four-year-old girl in a soft blue dress and button-down sweater carrying a tiny baby doll wrapped in a blanket and tucked inside her sweater and she was chatting away to the baby in French and I almost died.
photo by TimLytvinenko
Cat's Cradle 2008
This here video is something I found while innocently YouTubeing myself.
It's of a bunch of crazy people, obviously. It gets really good around 2:30 (2 min. 30 sec.) and I remember this--there were so many people on stage I couldn't hear Matt anymore. Hell yes!
It's of a bunch of crazy people, obviously. It gets really good around 2:30 (2 min. 30 sec.) and I remember this--there were so many people on stage I couldn't hear Matt anymore. Hell yes!
Friday, May 09, 2008
on the road: HOT FUDGE CAKE!
Ivan loves hot fudge cake from Shoney's. He really loves it so much. At the end of our first US tour, he was talking to his parents and telling them all about the cities we went to and how the shows were. His dad said, "Did you get to go to a Shoney's?" Sure did. "Did you get the hot fudge cake?" You know we did.
I realized the hot fudge cake was a whole thing. For the whole family.
On our second tour, Ivan asked our drummer, "Do you like hot fudge cakes?" He said, "Naw man. I don't like fudge." It got really quiet in the van for a while. A solid three minutes went by and Ivan sheepishly said, "You don't like any kind of fudge?"
I realized the hot fudge cake was a whole thing. For the whole family.
On our second tour, Ivan asked our drummer, "Do you like hot fudge cakes?" He said, "Naw man. I don't like fudge." It got really quiet in the van for a while. A solid three minutes went by and Ivan sheepishly said, "You don't like any kind of fudge?"
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
The sun never sets on the BSP!!!
This tour is going so well so far and you know how it is just getting to know people--think if this were a new office job... it could take months! But with touring musicians, it takes a few days to KNOW know each others' whole fucking deal.
Tonight, during our first song, I saw a worried Phil next to the stage on my side. His face. Next he was gone. I knew something was up. Later I learned that my keys were not in the house speakers and that the British Sea Power totally sprang into action--Phil came to me, which I knew meant something, then he and Scott went to the sound man as Mike, their own soundman, made split-second plans for a new amp. Emergency band reinforcements!
The sun never sets on the British Sea Power.
All of the east coast is about to blossom as we head into DC, moving north, toward the first days of spring in every town.
Tonight, during our first song, I saw a worried Phil next to the stage on my side. His face. Next he was gone. I knew something was up. Later I learned that my keys were not in the house speakers and that the British Sea Power totally sprang into action--Phil came to me, which I knew meant something, then he and Scott went to the sound man as Mike, their own soundman, made split-second plans for a new amp. Emergency band reinforcements!
The sun never sets on the British Sea Power.
All of the east coast is about to blossom as we head into DC, moving north, toward the first days of spring in every town.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Friday, May 02, 2008
Day 5: Tornado Warning
We are on our way through Arkansas, heading to Oxford, MS, through multiple tornado warnings in all counties we are about to cross. We are racing tornadoes at this point. Ivan said, "well, the warning will be over in a few minutes." Just then the announcer said, "with another cell just behind it."
Another warning coming through now.
I don't mean to make light of this because I know this storm has killed people today, but we are having alternating bouts of fear cracked up by laughter since there is one announcer who keeps referring to a nearby county called "Cooter County." He said, "And it IS getting hotter down in Cooter. We are seeing some moisture down there now." I mean, !!!
Another warning. Funnel cloud just west of us, moving to the east.
We are trying to pick our shelter now. Here comes the rain...
I thought a Target would be a good place to stop but I also thought about the possible fatal irony of picking an enormous building with an actual, prominently displayed target.
I don't want my life to have been reduced to that easy of a joke.
Oh damn, we are approaching Cooter now.
I also don't want to die in Cooter. The weather spotter is saying he is looking at two separate funnel clouds. I can't see one.
Here's a rest stop.
---
Matt just said, "Hey Kelly, go stand over next to that funnel cloud and let me get a picture." See here, we are funny ALL the time.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Another warning coming through now.
I don't mean to make light of this because I know this storm has killed people today, but we are having alternating bouts of fear cracked up by laughter since there is one announcer who keeps referring to a nearby county called "Cooter County." He said, "And it IS getting hotter down in Cooter. We are seeing some moisture down there now." I mean, !!!
Another warning. Funnel cloud just west of us, moving to the east.
We are trying to pick our shelter now. Here comes the rain...
I thought a Target would be a good place to stop but I also thought about the possible fatal irony of picking an enormous building with an actual, prominently displayed target.
I don't want my life to have been reduced to that easy of a joke.
Oh damn, we are approaching Cooter now.
I also don't want to die in Cooter. The weather spotter is saying he is looking at two separate funnel clouds. I can't see one.
Here's a rest stop.
---
Matt just said, "Hey Kelly, go stand over next to that funnel cloud and let me get a picture." See here, we are funny ALL the time.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Thursday, May 01, 2008
day 3: indianapolis
These people! They were so fun! We'd never been to Indy before and didn't know if anybody would like us but they totally did and it was a blast.
photo by tim lytvinenko
http://www.timlytvinenko.com
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
day 2
Lexington to Chicago.
we stopped at five rest stops, not including gas stations.
we stopped at five rest stops, not including gas stations.
five...
posted by dusty s.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
Boom. Done.
This here remix record is free at the MergeRecords.com online store so go on down and get it. Go on. Old Justin Vernon of Bon Iver has done a whale of a job reconstructing "Get up Get out" and laid open the sadness and beauty in the lyrics all the experts hadn't noticed. Roger O'Donnell put all these pitsicata/pizzacado/pizzicato/how do you say it? strings on "I Better Run" and when I first heard it I said, "Holy F! It was ROGER who made "Disintegration" what it is to me! It was ROGER who is responsible for my dark side after all! And now it is ROGER who has deconstructed it and shown it to me AGAIN!"
The Portastatic remix is the summer beach jam of jams! Mac surprised us with this remix when we were on tour and I remember listening to it on my laptop speakers in a moldy smelling 2-star and I thought, "I can't do this here. Not here!" But somehow it ended up only enhancing the beach feel.
For optimum results you'll need to lay in some supplies first--some sunburn creme and pina coladas.
The Fire Hazard remix is terrifying.
The JYU remix is electrifying.
The Luke Warm remix is strobifying.
The Radical 9 remix is Euro-dance-blast-erizing.
The El Venado remix is tent-revival-testifying.
And the Wes Phillips remix is possibly genius.
Sweet Beats, Troubled Sleep (Furies Remixed!)
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Sunday Morning--Let it be Known
I heard on NPR that scientists are trying to build a black hole and that there is a group of people who are trying to sue them to stop them. The scientists admitted that there is a chance their black hole could swallow everything, destroying Earth and everything else, but that it's unlikely.
I was writing in my diary about this and how I feel about it and had one particularly cantankerous thought which I will copy here:
"And I wonder about my little diary. You! Floating through space or another dimension, the only surviving artifact of our shitty little planet, carrying with you the seeds of corruption and beauty--an ugly little fruit just traveling through unknown and unintended fabrics of other time, sometimes scraping the fragments of other traveling minutiae, becoming striated, telling the story of your journey with these little injuries. Or maybe you never find a being to tell; maybe you just travel through and through, having infinite near-misses with meaning."
See, in this scenario, I have imagined that my diary is the only thing that survives annihilation. Naturally. Also, I've imagined that my diary is brimming with "seeds of corruption and beauty." When, in fact, it is merely a series of smallish scandals--at best. But it is positively festooned with self-aggrandizements. Just in case it does become the only surviving artifact of our existence. I do NOT want to be the evidence of a boring society. God sakes!
Do you know what it takes to be this narcissistic and self-obsessed? Man, a lot.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Jasmine
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday Morning--Let it be Known
Milk doesn't go with herbal tea.
Also...
Robin is telling me all about her anatomy class and everything that goes into human physiology. She said we have heart strings and that they operate much the same way the spokes on an umbrella work--they open and close a valve. I said, "The more you tell me, the more the body sounds like a machine."
"Oh man, just think about all it takes to get out of bed in the morning!"
She's right. We're way overdoing it.
Also...
Robin is telling me all about her anatomy class and everything that goes into human physiology. She said we have heart strings and that they operate much the same way the spokes on an umbrella work--they open and close a valve. I said, "The more you tell me, the more the body sounds like a machine."
"Oh man, just think about all it takes to get out of bed in the morning!"
She's right. We're way overdoing it.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Open Letter to Frank Black #3
Frank!
How are you? Where are you? I don't even know where you live. This is maybe a metaphor for something I guess--writing a letter and not knowing where to send it.
I'm in North Carolina now working on the new record. The time I spent in NYC was, well, really strange. I had alternating bouts of big-time creative productivity and then days of strange and terrible ailments. One week I was out all the time meeting stimulating and interesting people, working on so many new projects, and the next week I would have a fever and a pain in my side which I assumed was my kidney though who knows! Like the underground man: "Then again, I don't know a thing about my illness; I'm not even sure what hurts."
I hope you aren't too impressed--I don't usually compare myself to literary characters and I wish there was a way to erase saying it here but my delete button is broken. Can you believe that!?
Everybody around here has gone basketball crazy and it's giving me a good reason to try different kinds of beer.
I've been trying all the fancy imported and local beers that people are raving about and they're okay but I had a Natural Light in the can the other day and it was delicious. My friend Sarah reminded me that it is the beer with the taste for food.
I hope it likes Raleigh Times burgers because that's what it's getting.
I'm considering joining the YMCA. Do you exercise? I like the idea of it but haven't been able to commit to a gym because I generally despise the people who work at and go to the big, fancy gyms. I tried to join Peak Fitness once but instead, I narrowly escaped that awful place with my dignity. It was all I could do to not scream at the poor, orange creatures, "Fuck your techno!"
So the YMCA is starting to look more attractive.
You have any big Easter plans?
Kelly
How are you? Where are you? I don't even know where you live. This is maybe a metaphor for something I guess--writing a letter and not knowing where to send it.
I'm in North Carolina now working on the new record. The time I spent in NYC was, well, really strange. I had alternating bouts of big-time creative productivity and then days of strange and terrible ailments. One week I was out all the time meeting stimulating and interesting people, working on so many new projects, and the next week I would have a fever and a pain in my side which I assumed was my kidney though who knows! Like the underground man: "Then again, I don't know a thing about my illness; I'm not even sure what hurts."
I hope you aren't too impressed--I don't usually compare myself to literary characters and I wish there was a way to erase saying it here but my delete button is broken. Can you believe that!?
Everybody around here has gone basketball crazy and it's giving me a good reason to try different kinds of beer.
I've been trying all the fancy imported and local beers that people are raving about and they're okay but I had a Natural Light in the can the other day and it was delicious. My friend Sarah reminded me that it is the beer with the taste for food.
I hope it likes Raleigh Times burgers because that's what it's getting.
I'm considering joining the YMCA. Do you exercise? I like the idea of it but haven't been able to commit to a gym because I generally despise the people who work at and go to the big, fancy gyms. I tried to join Peak Fitness once but instead, I narrowly escaped that awful place with my dignity. It was all I could do to not scream at the poor, orange creatures, "Fuck your techno!"
So the YMCA is starting to look more attractive.
You have any big Easter plans?
Kelly
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Lady Chatterley's Lover--Reading Update
Lady Chatterley's Lover
by D.H. Lawrence
In our hotel in Spain there was pornography on the television. For free!
Not Cinemax style, this was, in fact, the real deal y'all. And not even ugly actors. Pretty people.
If you had told me there was porn before I got there, I would have probably switched on the TV right away for proof... instead of finding it accidentally. And wouldn't you? For the novelty at least!
I was not surprised to learn that Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned in America when it was published in Europe in 1928. I was surprised, however, to learn that lots of people bought different pirated versions of the novel and at really high prices.
It was banned because of the treatment of sex. Lawrence treats it as if it is in the room and anyone can talk about it and, well, how's that supposed to work?
To get people interested in reading a book, you can do no better than to say, "Whatever you do, NEVER READ THAT FILTHY BOOK!!!"
But this book isn't pornographic it turns out. It's sexual content is sometimes beautiful in it's directness. Upon reading the first real sex scene I thought, "Oh, that's how people do it. They just walk into a room and start!" Without any embarrassing all-night-talking before they finally drunkenly kiss. In Lawrence, the man walks over to the woman and tells her to lay down on the floor and both of them know what is happening and neither of them snickers or makes a joke. I hadn't thought of that.
But the best part isn't learning how to be human, it's the heavy poetry. Listen to this... This is the first paragraph of the novel:
"Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen."
I bet Lawrence really started living when the controversy of this book caught fire. I bet he just LOVED it. What self-respecting author wouldn't just delight in normal people being forced to take a side about an issue they're too embarrassed to name out loud? Normal people just behaving insanely over your novel. Hell yeah.
Because of the pirating, he decided to publish a cheap version on his own, to which he added an essay entitled "A Propos of "Lady Chatterley's Lover." In the essay he says:
"So, between the sick and the old puritan who is likely to fall into sexual indecency in advanced age, and the smart jazzy person of the young world, who says: 'We can do anything. If we can think a thing we can do it' --and then the low uncultured person with a dirty mind, who looks for dirt--this book has hardly a space to turn in. But to them all I say the same: Keep your perversions if you like them--your perversion of puritanism, your perversion of smart licentiousness, your perversion of a dirty mind. But I stick to my book and my position: Life is only bearable when the mind and the body are in harmony, and there is a natural balance between the two, and each has a natural respect for the other."
So it was curiosity that brought me to this novel but... Now I'm embarrassed that sexuality is still curious to anyone. Me.
by D.H. Lawrence
In our hotel in Spain there was pornography on the television. For free!
Not Cinemax style, this was, in fact, the real deal y'all. And not even ugly actors. Pretty people.
If you had told me there was porn before I got there, I would have probably switched on the TV right away for proof... instead of finding it accidentally. And wouldn't you? For the novelty at least!
I was not surprised to learn that Lady Chatterley's Lover was banned in America when it was published in Europe in 1928. I was surprised, however, to learn that lots of people bought different pirated versions of the novel and at really high prices.
It was banned because of the treatment of sex. Lawrence treats it as if it is in the room and anyone can talk about it and, well, how's that supposed to work?
To get people interested in reading a book, you can do no better than to say, "Whatever you do, NEVER READ THAT FILTHY BOOK!!!"
But this book isn't pornographic it turns out. It's sexual content is sometimes beautiful in it's directness. Upon reading the first real sex scene I thought, "Oh, that's how people do it. They just walk into a room and start!" Without any embarrassing all-night-talking before they finally drunkenly kiss. In Lawrence, the man walks over to the woman and tells her to lay down on the floor and both of them know what is happening and neither of them snickers or makes a joke. I hadn't thought of that.
But the best part isn't learning how to be human, it's the heavy poetry. Listen to this... This is the first paragraph of the novel:
"Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen."
I bet Lawrence really started living when the controversy of this book caught fire. I bet he just LOVED it. What self-respecting author wouldn't just delight in normal people being forced to take a side about an issue they're too embarrassed to name out loud? Normal people just behaving insanely over your novel. Hell yeah.
Because of the pirating, he decided to publish a cheap version on his own, to which he added an essay entitled "A Propos of "Lady Chatterley's Lover." In the essay he says:
"So, between the sick and the old puritan who is likely to fall into sexual indecency in advanced age, and the smart jazzy person of the young world, who says: 'We can do anything. If we can think a thing we can do it' --and then the low uncultured person with a dirty mind, who looks for dirt--this book has hardly a space to turn in. But to them all I say the same: Keep your perversions if you like them--your perversion of puritanism, your perversion of smart licentiousness, your perversion of a dirty mind. But I stick to my book and my position: Life is only bearable when the mind and the body are in harmony, and there is a natural balance between the two, and each has a natural respect for the other."
So it was curiosity that brought me to this novel but... Now I'm embarrassed that sexuality is still curious to anyone. Me.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Clairvoyance
It was when I predicted Steve Erwin's death that I decided that I'm clairvoyant. So I went to the bookstore to try to find information on how to harnass my abilities so I can figure out who's going to die or what I should do with my life, or, basically, just any ideas for ways to exploit my gift.
Sylvia Browne is the best they can do at Borders.
I think she started a religion called Novus Spiritus where there are tenets that have the word "thou" in a lot of them. She channels a voice called "Francine" whom she's been listening to since she was 7. She hears Francine's voice in only one ear, making her "clairaudient" or possibly psychotic, according to Sigorney Weaver--psychiatrist and top serial killer expert in the movie Copycat.
In one book I picked up, Sylvia says that the visions sometimes come to the clairvoyant in colors and that you CAN learn to channel and control them.
I don't have "visions" or "colors" or "voices" but, rather, just information that already exists. It's a part of my knowledge--just in general. I was visiting my grandma and saw Steve Erwin on TV and thought, "He will die." I said it out loud actually. My grandma said, "What?" I said, "He's going to die," and by Monday he was dead. It wasn't a vision, it was just information I sort of already knew.
My friend said sarcastically: "Wait! You predicted the Crocodile Hunter's death!? A guy who constantly fucks with crocodiles!?"
Yes, that is silly. And also there's a small chance your girlfriend is pregnant. But I didn't say that out loud.
What I know is random and the information is sometimes not really important so I forget that it might be true and I don't usually tell anybody about it so I occasionally catch myself saying, "Yeah, I already knew that was going to happen." Like an asshole.
And they say, "How did you know?" and I say, "I'm clairvoyant. I also predicted Steve Erwin's death."
Like an asshole.
Sylvia Browne is the best they can do at Borders.
I think she started a religion called Novus Spiritus where there are tenets that have the word "thou" in a lot of them. She channels a voice called "Francine" whom she's been listening to since she was 7. She hears Francine's voice in only one ear, making her "clairaudient" or possibly psychotic, according to Sigorney Weaver--psychiatrist and top serial killer expert in the movie Copycat.
In one book I picked up, Sylvia says that the visions sometimes come to the clairvoyant in colors and that you CAN learn to channel and control them.
I don't have "visions" or "colors" or "voices" but, rather, just information that already exists. It's a part of my knowledge--just in general. I was visiting my grandma and saw Steve Erwin on TV and thought, "He will die." I said it out loud actually. My grandma said, "What?" I said, "He's going to die," and by Monday he was dead. It wasn't a vision, it was just information I sort of already knew.
My friend said sarcastically: "Wait! You predicted the Crocodile Hunter's death!? A guy who constantly fucks with crocodiles!?"
Yes, that is silly. And also there's a small chance your girlfriend is pregnant. But I didn't say that out loud.
What I know is random and the information is sometimes not really important so I forget that it might be true and I don't usually tell anybody about it so I occasionally catch myself saying, "Yeah, I already knew that was going to happen." Like an asshole.
And they say, "How did you know?" and I say, "I'm clairvoyant. I also predicted Steve Erwin's death."
Like an asshole.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
PUSH IT
We're on tour, so come see us:
Wed 01.16.08 Carrboro, NC Cat's Cradle
Thu 01.17.08 Washington, DC Rock and Roll Hotel
Fri 01.18.08 Brooklyn, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg
Sat 01.19.08 Hoboken, NJ Maxwell's
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)