It’s time

I’ve been writing a post in my head for awhile, but I don’t have a ton to say.

– I’ve been having some…ennui, I guess, when it comes to music lately. Nothing’s getting me going, making me feel particularly sparked, alert, alive. And it extends to lots of art, actually. I’ve been thinking about this year and this year has been very much characterized by writers, musicians, filmmakers that I love (Facebook-profile level, I guess) releasing works that I’ve felt really middling about. It’s been total, to the point that it’s clearly a sign: stop following and start creating.

It’s not a bad sign.

Creepy, beautiful

Video for Emily Haines’ “Our Hell.” Girls named Emily have a certain charm.

Cool stuff

My Salon piece on Wizard Rock, including bands like Harry and the Potters and The Hungarian Horntails (hee to both, natch) from last year, “For those about to Harry Potter rock, we salute you,” was honorably mentioned in this year’s edition of Da Capo’s Best Music Writing 2008. Always a good read, that book.

Heartwarming

From the Syracuse University Magazine: “In 1939, The Daily Orange’s Elizabeth Donnelly gained widespread attention as one of the country’s first female college newspaper editors. Ironically, less than a decade before, the paper had featured a story that declared college a waste of time for women: “For an average girl who intends to make marriage her chief business, to waste four precious years that ought to be devoted to romantic adventure seems tragic.

Vacation

Blog posts will be non-existent until September. When I get back, I plan to pursue the pursuit of a real professional writer webpage in full.

I’ve been talking Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, for the day job, which I’ve definitely been obsessing over. This song, “Join The Professionals,” could definitely get in your head.

Recent links

I wrote this piece for the Globe on author Laura Dave, she’s great. The Divorce Party and London is the Best City in America are two wonderful comfort books for me, and they should be for you too. Read ’em!

Here’s another piece on the movie In Search of a Midnight Kiss. Enjoyable movie, would watch again! What maybe didn’t make it in fully to the piece was director Alex Holdridge’s love of Okkervil River (which we share), but it is total, and it was fun to talk about how there’s a lot of emotion and good writing in the music, which can be inspiring in other arenas.

Bowerbirds!

An interview that I did with frontman Phil Moore just went up on the Boston Globe website. I feel, a little bit, like they may know the secret. Like that scene in Rushmore where Bill Murray’s looking at Jason Schwartzman, so calm and serene and happy, and he says, “What’s the secret, Max?” and the kid replies, “The secret, I don’t know… I guess you’ve just gotta find something you love to do and then… do it for the rest of your life. For me, it’s going to Rushmore.” Of course, that proves to be futile, and that’s what most of the movie is about, but I, too, want to know the secret.

Argh

I have a lot I want to write, but now’s not the time, I think. I’ve been in a complete mood-perhaps it’s the weather? The magic of summer (completely and thoroughly my least favorite season)?

There has been a sort of “goodbye to all that, regarding ‘indie’ culture (and, possibly, also the internet)” percolating in my brain but I can’t articulate it. Culture, to me, feels less exciting, less daring than it was ten years ago. And I don’t think it was because I was a teenager then and that’s all I had to shape my identity with, per se. It feels like the internet has worked as a pandora’s box. In some ways it’s exciting, but in some ways, I just feel married to my computer and technology and I hate what it’s doing to social interactions.

It hurts to see newspapers flailing and critics losing their jobs. It hurts to see the music that I liked, no, needed, because I was ugly and unsure and unafraid is now a fashion statement and utterly disposable. It hurts to see movies becoming irrelevant-they’ve been ceded to the fanboys. Honestly, it’s hard to write about movies as a woman, sometimes, since I never feel like they’re made for me, like they’re generous enough in spirit. It’s a bros’ world after all. (Some movies are good, though!)

I think I always wanted to be a magazine writer. I’m an excellent interviewer, I have a knack for the interesting, I’m good at following people and writing it up. I think it’s a really hard row to hoe, and between the internet’s chokehold on the industry, the rise of “unpaid internhips” as a necessary stepping stone, and a whole generation getting kicked out of their jobs as others get into place, I don’t know if it’s feasible.

Or if it’s what I want right now.

I’m going to start volunteering and I’m going to start learning new things.

Eat food

This ice cider:

Plus Manchego and Old Amsterdam:

Plus Figs = MAGIC!!!

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson is swell

“Buriedfed” is a staggering song, simply one of the best songs I’ve heard in quite some time. Visionary and epic. If the whole album stood up to this song, it’d be a classic. Instead, it’s just very good. I don’t know how I feel about the video, but he’s a charismatic dude. I saw him play about a week or so ago, and he’s excellent on guitar, and despite the fact that he can sing, delivered a lot of the songs in a choked-up Dylan nasal drawl–and it was spot on, actually.