i'll miss you too, my spuddy buddy.

you have no idea how earnestly i am hoping that this turns out to be true:

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

thanks to fluffy dollars for the link.

the little engine that can't

there's a decent article on grace ross in the boston globe today. i know you need to log in to the site to see it, and that's a nuisance, but you don't have to pay them anything and they never e-mail. because it's a nuisance, though, and because they allow subscribers to read the articles for free, i'll be happy to e-mail the text to you if you'd rather not give yourself one more password to remember. the most striking passage, to me, was not directly about ross, but about the stellar political acuity of college students (and probably a lot of their parents):

dubiously eyeing the throng waiting for ross in a student center lounge, one student commented to another, "i'll probably vote for healey or something." replied the other, as they walked away, "or deval."

oh. my. god. oh my god. OH MY GOD! i love democracy and everyone should have the right to vote, but if this is all the thought you plan on putting into your decision, i would just as soon have you opt not to exercise that right. we complain about the embarassingly low percentage of the population that turns out for elections, even presidential ones, and it's true that we should do better, but not just in terms of turnout numbers. people don't want to take the time to learn anything about the candidates, they want newspaper headlines and commercials and other people to tell them whom they want and why. it's insane. while i can't swear that all of her policies would be winners in practice, ross has a lot of excellent ideas that deserve to be heard by everyone in this state. she is an exceptionally bright woman who has literally dedicated her life to community service. she's been entirely honest with the public. she's never danced around a question (healey) or tried to pad thin statements with charm (patrick) or been a crazy person (mihos), but because she can't afford a tv spot, no one's considered her. her loss in this election is a foregone conclusion, but her presence in the debates forced the top contenders to step up their game more than they ever would have done if they'd only had each other to consider, and i really hope that this isn't the last we see of her. if nothing else, she puts some pressure on other candidates to be more public representative than politician, and that's something we're all guaranteed to benefit from.

unless the public that wound up with the most representation was the percentage that plans to vote for healey or deval or something, in which case we'd all get, well, more of what we've been getting, i guess. everyone who runs will tell you he or she is the one who can get us over that hill, but the problem is the huge amount of dead weight in the rear car--the thousands of people sitting on their hands, scowling and muttering to each other about how they can't understand why it's taking so long to get over the hill. push, damn it! and think about steering, too.

make way for the ess-oh-veeEEEEEEE

i love lady sovereign for a lot of reasons. some of the less commendable ones are that she has made the side ponytail socially acceptable again and that since she hit, trendy girls have been notably less likely to flare their trendy nostrils at my oversized men's kikwears and breakdowns. i don't know how anyone could look askance at the giant skater pants. they've got everything--they're more comfortable than pajamas, their roominess prevents their knees from ever giving way, and the back pocket that reaches all the way down the thigh is the perfect size for a folded copy of the new yorker. i recognize that this is not the intended purpose of the pocket; it was, i believe, originally intended to hold my gat, and was later co-opted so it could hold my white crowns and glow sticks. but i'm a grown-up now, so new yorker it is. maybe if more of those trendy girls held literacy in a slightly higher regard, they'd have a greater appreciation for the utilitarian beauty of the garment.

forget that. the good and true basis of my lady-sov love is that she is a young, tiny, adorable girl who is not only holding her own in but conquering a segment of the music world that has rarely welcomed the likes of her (although the grime scene has embraced women more than hip hop has overall). and make no mistake, she's earning her renown. the girl is fierce. in between-song banter she can throw out two or three improvised lines that would make any grime/rhyme fan gasp and holler, and not only will they be tight and smart, they'll be funny. sharp as a tack, that one, and not at all afraid to belch or pick at her zits or use the C word. naturally, the idea of her playing the paradise sent me richocheting off the walls, and by the time last night's show date rolled around i'd had my ticket clipped to the refrigerator door for about a month.

there was no need for the pre-order, as it turned out. the crowd was surprisingly sparse, given how ubiquitous sovereign was a month or two ago. i thought maybe the problem was that her new album and single had exploded with the american malls' jeunesse doree, who might not be so excited about attending a hip-hop show on a thursday night. but that wasn't it; as happens so frequently lately, i was surprised and then not at all surprised by the preponderance of carefully made-up girls in peasant skirts and flip-flops. it's late october, it's cold, the main act is likely to throw beer at you, but why the hell not? so i hoped maybe people were just skipping out on the openers and would pour in sometime around 10:30, but that didnt' happen either. so sad. at least the folks who did show were interesting to watch. the box to the left of the stage was occupied by some (hopefully intoxicated) college girls who were rocking out a little too enthusiastically for their tiny tops. to my right there was a cluster of fresh-faced, exuberant youths shuffle-hopping awkwardly but sincerely, as though moby had just shown them god moving over the face of the waters and they were feeling so real. and everywhere, everywhere, were middle-aged women in blazers doing the elaine benes twist. sovereign commented on them, actually: "ohhh, we've got some fogeys out tonight. we hate fogeys, don't we? blow-dried-starch-pressed-secretary-businesswoman (she tossed up a delightful little couplet here, the specifics of which escape me now). she's old enough to be me mum. of course, i love me mum. let's hear it from everyone who loves their mum. not you, fogey!" now, i recognize that i'm verging precariously on fogey in the circles i move in, having become accustomed to being the oldest audience member at every musical event i attend, so i wasn't about to berate anyone. but sovereign is, as i've said, quite young--young enough not to care who knows that she can't hold her liquor very well--and it was her show, and she was kicking ass, and no one seemed to mind it anyway.

the crowd saved its energy for "love me or hate me," which sovereign wisely held off on until the end, at which time everyone started bouncing around like superballs in an off-roading 1970 citroen. i resented it only because they didn't do it for other equally bounceworthy tunes like "hoodie" and "orange," but i understand that this song was the single for a reason. they didn't do it for "public warning," though, either, when she performed it as the encor, and that was just wrong. that song is one of the sickest tracks i've ever heard, so unless people were simply paralyzed by their awe, there was no excuse for their restraint. flip-flops are hard to dance in, maybe? it's very difficult to mosh and sip corona at the same time? i'm sure they had their excuses, but i'm not interested in them. i mean, even the fogeys were busting out the moves.

the set was brief, but sovereign was losing her voice and wanted very badly to take her shoes off, so no hard feelings. besides, i'm old enough to appreciate being home by 12:30 AM. and ultimately it's a quality-over-quantity issue: if the girl can cram a huge wad of badass into a tiny amount of space--and hell yeah she can--then she gets to walk away a little sooner than someone else who couldn't get the job done. so kiss-kiss, lady sovereign, and if that was your big black tour bus in front of me on mass ave. this morning, i hope you saw me waving frantically and offering you my banana-nut-bread clif bar.

i'll kill you, you arrogant, dodgy ice queen! just as soon as i stop giggling . . .

i would like to thank ed prisby over at prizblog for tempering the "why isn't anyone punching kerry healey in the neck?" rage i expressed at marry in massachusetts with the most hilariously cathartic gubernatorial debate transcript in existence. you all thought i wasn't paying any attention, didn't you? not so. i'm elated at patrick's sizable lead, though i more than sympathize with grace ross's indignant socialism. maybe we can stabilize the state first and incorporate some more all-embracing policies farther down the road. i think you have to be a little bit sneakier about policies like that. nobody really wants to distribute the wealth evenly--especially not their own wealth (and why wouldn't you disclose the amount of your charitable donations over the past year, healey? DODGY!). but if you can trick them into doing it through stealthy legislative maneuvers and then, when you're caught, say, "but look how much it's helping the children!" you might have a shot at keeping those changes in place. would people really stand up and demand that beacon hill stop supporting the commonwealth and put money back in the pockets of the people with all the money where it belongs?

well, yeah. but those people aren't very likeable. don't assault kerry healey, though, because she'll give your ass the chair. just take a few minutes to laugh at her instead.

ladies and gentlemen, the world's most poetically neologistic spam

List all the SPORTS you remember loving or hating in your lifetime. Choose several from your completed list and write about HOW SPORTS CAN TELL YOU A LOT ABOUT A PERSON.

A vacuum cleaner brainwashes a stovepipe near a particle accelerator, because the insurance agent is a big fan of the vacuum cleaner beyond a vacuum cleaner. An anomaly brainwashes a feline nation. A Eurasian avocado pit satiates the diskette of the line dancer. Furthermore, a cargo bay inside a grand piano feels nagging remorse, and a turkey around a bottle of beer operates a small fruit stand with an umbrella for a globule. When you see a cosmopolitan cowboy, it means that the diskette earns frequent flier miles. The roller coaster

You really can't fail with integrated management matrix approaches.

friday celebrity-letter blogging

dear john krasinski,

you're awesome. did you know that you and i have the same birthday? we're both from massachusetts, too, and you went to brown, and i totally wanted to go to brown because i was obsessed with their radio station, but then i didn't go because i thought a different school would be better for a pre-vet major, and that's so good because right after i graduated from high school their radio station started to wicked suck, but anyway, we have all that stuff in common, and so i think that means we're soul mates. what's conan o'brien really like? did you guys talk all the time about being from massachusetts? did he ever let you wear any of his ties? he has some sweet ties.

i never used to watch your version of the office because i didn't believe that anyone could ever outdo ricky gervais, but you're really cute and tall so then i watched it sometimes, even though i think i was right and it isn't as good as the original one. but now you're, like, not even on it! what's up with that?

so, i know you're making a movie about some book, and i just wanted to tell you that if it isn't good i'm going to be superpissed and tell everyone that you only say your birthday is the same as mine because you wish you were as cool as me. no, not really, i'll totally still love you!!!! ;p but, seriously, i hope it's good. like, for your sake.

ttfn!

your soul mate,
juniper

philosophy and futility, philosophy of futility, philosophy is futility . . .

i'm still mulling it over.

this evening i heard gary drescher speak about whether or not there is a place for ethics in a mechanical, deterministic universe. ultimately, his conclusion is that there is, and while i wasn't fully on board with his argument as to why, i do agree, and i'm willing to cut him some slack. after all, it isn't the easiest case to make. i'll talk some about how he presented his theory, but i ask you to forgive me if i don't do a bang-up job
of it. i, after all, am not a philosopher, just a girl with enough time to kill to spend three hours on a tuesday night deciding she isn't fully on board with a philosopher, and am not trained in the proper case-making techniques. but this is my house and i'll stand on a chair in the middle of it and talk to myself if i want to, and you, as always, are welcome to stand on a chair next to me, or sit in a different room, or kick the front door down and flee, or watch secretly through the window. i ask only that you don't sneak up behind me and knock me off of the chair, because if i'm in a coma no one will feed the cat, and she doesn't deserve to suffer for my, or your, actions.

first, the nature of the deterministic universe. it's pretty simple, really:


each of those horizontal planes represents a finite instant in time, like a polaroid of the entire universe. if you accept that the universe is governed by laws of physics that apply with equal weight to everything within it, then you can take any one of those snapshots and calculate all of the future (and, theoretically, past; you may as well buy it, this is all conjecture anyway) actions and positions of everything in the image. so, if you can do the math, and all of spacetime is governed by the math, then once you have any one slice of spacetime, the entirety of it off into infinity in either direction is already carved in stone. that means that all of your actions are written, too. it's as if the day you were born you were handed a gigantic flip book with a stick-figure you reading a flip book of its own drawn on every page, and the time it takes you to turn a page is the time that elapses from each page to the next. you don't know when you're looking at page 29,457 that on page 18,946,273,125 you'll be eating a pluot and scratching your left eyebrow, but the drawing is already finished. that sort of thing.

second, i am not about to argue that anything anywhere is predetermined. sometimes i wish i could, as you'll see in a minute, but it isn't a theory i've ever been able to embrace. i'm working within the boundaries of that theory this evening because the discussion hinges on that supposition, but it's just a discussion. please do not send me your dissertation on why everything is random; i love quantum theory as much as you do, i'm just having a little chat. of course, don't send me your dissertation on why nothing is random, either. my stance is this: no one can prove anything beyond my reasonable doubt. and i'm o.k. with that. i'm great with that. i have no desire to be any more certain of anything of that nature than i am right now. i am going to make whatever choices i am going to make, either because i can't help it or because i have helped it, and that is a beautiful, beautiful truth.

the thing i take issue with is the common desire to apply the terms "futile" and "meaningless" to the choice-making process when one is assuming that the outcome of a choice is extant prior to an individual's realization of which choice it is that he or she is making. people love to argue that in this case the individual isn't making a choice, but of course that isn't so. "making a choice," as drescher explained, is a mechanical process, like walking. when you walk from point a to point b with the aim of getting to point b, you have engaged in a process similar to making an intellectual decision based on your desire for a specific outcome. to say you aren't making a choice because the outcome of the process is predetermined is like saying that when you walk in a direction that leads you from point a to point b and could have led you to no other point, you didn't actually do any walking. you know you did. you know you did.

i assume what people mean by "futile," in this instance, is that the decision has no impact on the outcome of the decision maker's own life, and i wouldn't disagree with that in this context (we are remembering, bunnies, are we not, that i do not believe that is the kind of world we live in?). but that doesn't make it futile.

remember that flip book? let's change it around a little. imagine the pages spreading out into an arch, arranged in a profoundly meticulous order that allowed the arch to maintain its shape with no outside supports, like one of these:


now, of course the metaphor doesn't carry completely, as all of the slices of spacetime are equal in proportion*, and in order to make an arch functional you need to vary the sizes of the stones. too, this arch was built by a british middle-school student, and the spacetime continuum is, well, the spacetime continuum, but that means it isn't a flip book, so if you were down with that image you may as well accept this one. the flip book is now an arch, and if you remove any one page the entire structure collapses. when the structure is the universe, the outcome of something like that is, you know, bad. quite bad.

so remember now that on every page in that flip book that you occupy, you are engaging in an action, an action that is the result of a choice that you made (yes you DID, we just went through that), and even if that choice-making process was irrelevant to the ultimate outcome of your own personal life, it was hugely important to the big picture. the process led to an action that occupies a position in spacetime, and if there were suddenly nothing where now there is you engaging in that predetermined, necessary action, the entire arch would fall down on top of itself. it may be true that you can't control, or even affect, the workings of the predetermined universe, but you are still contributing to them, just by being here or there or wherever you are, because that is the place you had to be in to keep the whole unknowable thing from disintegrating or imploding or doing whatever it is a spacetime continuum does when it gets all fucked up. that is a massive responsibility, one that, if you don't believe in determinism, could crush you, paralyze you. i mean, how many of you have lost fifteen minutes in the cereal aisle, frozen before the array of whole grains and sugar-coated puffs and flakes with berries and oat clusters with nuts? we labor over decisions like that, truly, honestly struggle, even though it's just cereal and if you don't like it you don't have to eat it, and all that's gone wrong is you have three fewer dollars than you had yesterday. your kitchen and the supermarket will not cease to exist if you decide there aren't enough berries in the flakes—unless they will. no, they won't, but do you see how much easier not having to wonder whether this or that decision is The Decision makes everything? if you don't like the flakes, well, there's nothing you can do about that, you just aren't going to like the flakes, because spacetime doesn't want you to like the flakes, and something you move on a shelf when you go back to the supermarket tomorrow to buy the oat clusters you think you should have bought in the first place (but, of course, shouldn't have) will shift just the right number of atoms to keep the entire universe right-side up. it's so easy. it's genius. and yet people whine about the very notion of it, because they think it robs them of purpose. universe, right-side up, thing you moved. how much more responsibility are you after?

it's narcissism, then. when people say "futile," they mean on a personal level, but if you believe in a deterministic universe, which is by definition a universe where all matter is connected, since determinism only works if particles interact according to static physical laws, then there is no such thing as a personal level. there is only one level, on which all matter is even and impacted equally by every action in every immeasurably small fraction of time. people say "futile" because they don't know how to imagine all of that without themselves at the center. but we're nowhere near the center. seriously. not even close. of course, if you believe in a deterministic universe, then you are forced to accept that all of those narcissistic people were programmed to be precisely that way, and that's a tough one. well, for me it is, because i want to shake them out of it. but then, wouldn't that mean i was predestined to want that? i am saving the universe right this minute, simply by telling all of you navel-gazing monkeys to get right the hell over yourselves.

this gobbledygook circles around on itself infinitely, especially when i'm spewing it from atop a chair in the middle of my house, so i'm going to move on to the next point of interest.

you may remember that the point of drescher's discussion was to support the idea that ethics are valid in a predetermined reality. of course, you may just as easily have forgotten, and at this point i wouldn't fault you for that at all. but now that i've reminded you, let's talk about that idea a little.

like i said, i agree. i believe that ethics have a role in every reality, and, like drescher, i don't think that morality is relative from situation to situation or culture to culture. but i don't agree with his reasoning for why ethical behavior is good or correct behavior. in his argument he employed the prisoner's dilemma, a classic example of non-zero-sum game theory that i don't really want to let myself get started on right now. i'm going to skip straight to the lesson of the example, which is that rationally it is in one's best interest to choose cooperation or actions that lead to mutual benefit, and because it is the rational choice for you, you should assume that others will recognize it is the rational choice for them, and when you and they all make that choice every time a dilemma arises, everyone will benefit all of the time. and that, drescher says, is the miracle of altruism—that it is, in fact, not altruism at all, but a kind of selfishness that you will inevitably be able to pass off as altruism under almost all circumstances, and that's just as good.

no, it's not. but (sigh, oh sigh, oh forlorn and heavy sigh) i'll take it.

altruism, i think, is a sort of platonic ideal that doesn't actually exist in this realm. even if you choose to engage in an act that you are certain you will suffer from because you know someone else will benefit, you still gain the comfort of knowing you did what you believed was the right thing, and that can be a greater reward than any physical or material gain. no person or animal does anything that they don't benefit from at all; that would be counterintuitive in terms of survival instinct and propagation of the species. but consciously choosing, for mathematically supported reasons, the action that you stand to personally benefit from the most is about as far from the idea of altruism as you can get. in the prisoner's dilemma, the altruistic decision is still to cooperate, but the decision would be made with the knowledge, maybe even the assumption, that you might wind up spending the rest of your life in jail for it. the decision to cooperate is only altruistic in this instance if you are making it solely for reasons of minimizing the other prisoner's sentence, and, as that is explicitly not the purpose of the game, the example says nothing about altruism. it does, however, make a beautiful argument for mutualism, and in this world where genuine selflessness can not exist, mutualism is about as good as it gets, and, honestly, far better than we've ever managed. i don't think, though, that this makes a very compelling argument for objective ethics, at least not as i understand them. too, you have to consider that the prisoner's dilemma was designed to prove a point about non-zero-sum scenarios, and it does this, but if it was built around the problem rather than being derived after observations of reactions to such a problem, it may not be entirely reliable. it also hinges on the assumption that all individuals involved in the problem are equally rational and likely to think the whole thing through in such a calm and calculated manner, which one can assume will rarely be the case. but, like i said, i don't know all that much about these things.

the discussion ended with some questions addressed to drescher on whether he thought this sort of "ethical" choice making was carried out by other species. now, i heard this question and made a little face, because i thought it was an insanely silly thing to ask, but when drescher said yes, he thought it carried through most species, a lot of people seemed taken aback. the moderator actually closed the discussion after saying that the idea that evolution might have wired animals to be oriented toward mutual benefit kind of blew his mind. it was good that he wound things up then, because i was getting ready to make a not-so-little face and maybe stand on a chair in the arts section of mcintyre and moore instead of waiting until i got home. even the most cursory examination of any animal population from now back through to the dawn of multicellular organisms would prove immediately that this is the only kind of decision being made by every species—except humans. what we started out doing exclusively, by instinct alone, is now a jaw-dropping concept that a circle of apparently intelligent people who have gathered to talk about that very concept can just barely get their minds around. ants and bees live in colonies and work only for the good of the colony, because the good of the colony is the good of the insect. americans now regard ants as the absolute worst pest they can have in their home. they've beaten the cockroach, ladies and gentlemen. i can't wait to see what catherine chalmers does with this one.

and that, my sweetnesses, my everythings, is why i can't believe in a mechanical, deterministic universe. how could something that started out so well have devolved to this point where we have to plan meetings to debate whether or not it's in our best interests to look out for each other? how could that be a thing that's meant to happen, that has to happen? granted, i can't make guesses about the page in the flip book 14 billion pages from here, and anything, i mean anything, could be going on down there, but if the universe is arranged in a way that serves its own needs in the most ideal manner possible . . .

gah. i could make another speech, but my legs are tired, and this chair wasn't all that sturdy to begin with. maybe the earth is a thing the universe hates, like a giant whitehead on its pre-prom forehead, and we're the bacteria inside, and for the past 4.6 billion years it's been all the universe could do to not squeeze us out all over the mirror. don't be snickering over there in your smarty-pants wire-rim glasses, my guess is as good as yours and you know it. at the end of the day, we convince ourselves of whatever it is that lets us sleep, right?

i say we always have the opportunity to make the right choice. and then i say good night.




* they're equal in this newtonian model. more commonly, though, the idea that a moving object traces a line diagonal to the time axis as it moves through space leads to a conical diagram, like this:


this makes the arch concept a little more plausible, since the diagram widens in both directions as you move away from the starting point, i.e., your present in which you are attempting to make a decision or engage in an action. but it's still, just, you know, whatever. it's the meaning of the thing that you need to understand, not the shape of the thing.

SUCK IT, WAL-MART!!! SUCK IT!!!

it's a drop in the bucket, but:

wal-mart stores inc., the world's biggest retailer, must pay at least $78 million for violating pennsylvania state labor laws by forcing employees to work through rest breaks and off the clock, a jury said Friday.

the class-action suit involves 187,000 current and former employees who worked at wal-mart and sam's clubs in pennsylvania from march 1998 through may of this year. the common pleas court jury found thursday that wal-mart violated state labor laws.

lead plaintiff dolores hummel, who worked at a sam's club in reading from 1992-2002, charged in her suit that she had to work through breaks and after quitting time to meet work demands in the bakery. she said she worked eight to 12 unpaid hours a month, on average, to meet work demands.

"one of wal-mart's undisclosed secrets for its profitability is its creation and implementation of a system that encourages off-the-clock work for its hourly employees …" hummel said in her suit, which was filed in 2002.

ms. hummel: i applaud your stand and congratulate you on your victory.

wal-mart: you are the bloody devil and you must be destroyed. the workers' revolt begins now.

friday celebrity-letter blogging

dear zach braff,

you are already famous. you do not need to ho yourself out on myspace. please stop abusing the passionate adoration bestowed upon you by teenage girls across the globe. seriously. that's weak. i mean, i know everyone thinks it's lovely that you're trying to make yourself accessible to the people you owe your success to, but they think you're doing it as a display of gratitude and down-to-earthness. i, on the other hand, am pretty sure you're doing it because you require inordinate amounts of attention and praise and are convinced that you can not survive without being patted on the head and told you're pretty at least thirty-seven times a day. but you can, zach. myspace is a tough thing to beat, anyone will tell you, but the strength is in you. break the fuck free.

i'll have your needy, narcissistic back the whole way.

your sponsor,
juniper

postscript: why are you not outraged over the way james roday has co-opted all your moves? because unless you and david duchovny have secretly had yourselves a genetically engineered love child, that dude is totally harshing your gig. you should be outraged. i'm outraged.

post-postscript: when people started saying, "this is the new shins song from the garden state soundtrack," did you grab them by the collar and scream, "NO! this is the three-year-old shins song from oh, inverted world! get it right! GET IT RIGHT!!!!!!" because i did.

post-post-postcript: i will forgive you for all of this if you'll say something beautiful about sufjan stevens in all of your future interviews.

sí, ah sí: ellos la tienen

i generally don't have it in me to make the schlep down to lansdowne street. this is typically due at least in part to the previously discussed insufficience of the local parking and transit, and also because, well, a lot of lansdowne is icky and peopled by very drunk youths in very shiny (and often insufficient) clothing. but yo la tengo, who played at lansdowne's avalon on september 28, are legends, both in my mind and in the physical realm, and i couldn't say no.

allow me to pause here and pat myself profusely on the head for saying yes.

on this night there was once again the draw of an opening band that would have been enough to bring me in all on its own (why?, whom i last saw opening for islands and have batted my crush-stricken cyberlashes at before), but this time it was a serendipitous gift. it may be that avalon's sound system is superior to the middle east's or that standing more than six yards from the wall of speakers improves one's ability to pick up on the more nuanced aspects of a performance, but i think why? sounded better this time than they did the last; i certainly loved them more. their music is sharp and punchy, with the strangely rhythmed vocals of early modest mouse or pavement and pretty, jangly melodies that make you want to jump up and down on the furniture. i was watching them from a much greater distance than in the past (avalon, too, has a lovely balcony section with cushy benches, perfect for uninterested chaperones and fans who no longer believe fainting from heat stroke or a willingness to take an elbow in the eye are reliable measures of one's earnestness) and was able to absorb the full spasticity of the band like never before. once i got over the stage's very pretty backdrop of colored lights on a black screen, which was like a night sky the way it ought to look but now only does from some remote, uncharted land mass near the south pole, i became frequently engrossed by the drummer's seemingly boneless upper body and its invertebrate undulations. he has one move where he twists himself into a wormy coil and stretches his neck what looks like about a foot and a half, flattening his jaw in a manner somewhere between a turtle attempting to nibble a tender green just out of its reach and a cat preparing to vomit. he never dropped the beat, though, and for that he wins my Indie Mutant of the Year reflective safety helmet.


well played, young man.

so. yo la tengo. i don't know how you could have managed to survive this long without them, but let's pretend it's possible and you don't know that yo la tengo have been doing hoboken proud with their epic, all-things-to-all-people approach to writing and playing songs for the past twenty-six years. in that case, you also would not know that after performing together for such a length of time, the act is something that takes place so much more between them than in front of you that the show becomes an almost voyeuristic indulgence. i don't mean voyeurism like training your telescope on the neighbors' bed- and/or bathroom; what i'm talking about is more like what you would experience if you aimed that telescope at the kitchen and watched while half of a couple washed dishes as the other half sat at the table nearby and paid bills--the intimacy of people who know each other inside and out and only half notice each other's entirely familiar movements as they do whatever it is that they're doing together for the nineteen thousandth time. you know what it is that makes that scene so powerful, don't you? you know why you're watching in the first place? it's because you want that moment in your own life; you want in. and, man, do i ever.

the band's drummer, georgia hubley, and guitarist, ira kaplan, have been married approximately forever and exactly eighteen years, and they've been a couple since 1981. how have they done it? everybody asks. how have they lived and worked and toured together day in and day out for a quarter of a century and not destroyed each other or turned to mind-altering chemicals to liven up the obliterating sameness of it all?*

well, i couldn't tell you. i've burned every bridge i've ever laid eyes on. but i know this:

georgia runs an impeccably tight ship. she drums like a metronome, like a machine, never faltering, never sliding, never doing anything but steering that ship, even through the waves and waves of noise that will sometimes surge up at her while ira very plainly loses his mind, simultaneously doubling up as if his appendix has just burst and flipping his guitar over his head or staggering toward the amp like it had just told him seven long island iced teas was enough and maybe he should go home. for ten, fifteen minutes this might go on, just sound and sound and sound until you, way up in the old-people balcony, start to feel a little faint and overwhelmed and dubious about that orange juice you drank really being just orange juice. and the whole time georgia steers that ship, the rhythm constant as polaris in the center of that twinkling, shifting backdrop and that droning, fender-propelled fog of buzz and madness, and when it's time for ira to come back in,

georgia looks at him. and he looks at her. the cloud lifts, the water calms, the song ends.

i guess that's how they do it. and three cheers for that. oh, also, they have no children. and james mcnew, the bassist, is brilliant and adorable and covered prince on his solo album, and how could anyone not be happy while he was around? impossible.

i'm happy to continue traveling alone while i wait for the opportunity to travel like that.






*i'm not necessarily ruling this out, mind you. they did come of age in the disco era, and they're definitely sweet on the velvet underground.

juniper pearl's rockin' month in rock review

so, the move, as you may by now have surmised, was a success. i'm unpacked and furnished and equipped with nearly all* the necessary utilities and amenities (including internet service; thank you for your concern), and i'd like to share a little something with all of you:

living alone rocks.

it rocks hard. it rocks like your first pair of combat boots. it rocks like dethklok. it rocks like you and your air guitar/drums always knew you were rocking. it does not rock like this:

and all this rocking has pumped me full of more enthusiasm than a sublingual meth injection. i've become an honest-to-goodness doer, and while it's taken me some time to shake off the mania of it all and achieve some balance between doing and thinking (which i've been a lifelong fan of and, quite frankly, have begun to miss), i'm at a point now where i can begin to allow a little of the outside world into my four-room nest, and maybe a little more of me into your nests, if you'll still have me. while i'm taking some deep breaths, for those of you who are interested, here's a run-down of some of the things i've been so ardently immersed in the doing of over the past few weeks.

1. the somerville theatre, within walking distance of my new happy hideaway, is a stellar place to catch fairly new movies and some great, if frequently lesser-known, musical acts. every thursday in september the theater screened four eyed monsters, a charming, astonishingly honest, no-budget movie created and being self-distributed by susan brice and arin crumley, who are also the film's stars and who have financed the entire endeavor on their credit cards. the movie is largely autobiographical and chronicles the couple's meeting, subsequent disbanding, and ultimate inability to resist each other's pervasive, beautiful oddness.** they shot the movie on some sort of fancy digital camera which arin explained the workings of very succinctly during the q & a following the september 14 screening, but that was weeks ago, and i don't even own a regular camera, so if you want details you'll have to ask him yourself. (don't be shy, i think he'd be happy to tell you all about it.) there's also a lot of animation cut in, courtesy of susan. the overarching theme is communication and how the hell anyone figures out how to engage in it successfully. arin and susan chose to try not speaking, and it worked so well on their first date that they kept it up--for four months. anyone who knows me knows how much i love not speaking, and while not everyone has been willing to humor me about it, a stoic few have been incredibly indulgent. i love them best, and i'll be buying each of them a copy of this film the second it's released. the piece is apparently in constant production--the version we saw was different from the one that was first released, and the dvd version will be different from both of those--but i imagine each incarnation is a little bit better than the last.

2. the middle east is not within walking distance, but i could ride a bicycle there in practically no time, if i could ride a bicycle. instead i take the train, and that suits me just fine. more or less all of the club's shows are $12, no matter how phenomenal the bands are (and they're usually pretty spectacular). the interior is just the right size and perfectly climate controlled; there's even an elevated area off to the side where i can lean on the banister and read a book between acts, allowing me to avoid any unnecessary, nonrocking social interaction. most recently (september 16) i went to see say hi to your mom and craig wedren, who were opening for the wrens. i had never heard of the wrens, but the two openers were more than worth the $12 for me, and after say hi to your mom played "blah blah blah" and "let's talk about spaceships" and craig wedren played about two-thirds of pony express record, possibly the best album by his former band, shudder to think, and a collection of songs that i spent many, many, many dimly lit teenage evenings writing heinous poetry in my bedroom to, i would have felt fine about walking out the second the wrens hit the stage. i did no such thing, though, because THE WRENS ARE ROCK GODS. here's me as the wrens took the stage:


and here's me fifteen seconds into their first song:

look! the wrens have decreased my age by 50%!

my radiant expression of tufted glee didn't fade for an instant throughout the rest of the set, and it broke my heart to have to walk out during the (hopefully) last song of the encor to catch the final train back home. i will say this once and never again, but know that i am repeating it to myself day in and day out like the world's least centering mantra: boston's public transportation system is lame as a penguin with a peg leg. it shuts down far too early, and i am teeming with resentment over it. stopping the runs before 1 AM makes the city almost useless to anyone but the students who live in dorms built on top of clubs and bars and people with enough disposable income to be able to afford both a night out and the obscene cab fare and/or parking fees that accompany the drive to the chosen venue. granted, these expenses might not be so off-putting to someone who didn't travel in such persistent solitude, but still. we can't run the trains until 1:30? seriously? that's bunk.

enough of that, though. the wrens: embrace them. and as for other people and things you know nothing about, well, i'd maintain a safe distance, but also an open and inquisitive mind.

3. mcintyre and moore is a killer used book store whose inventory covers almost every imaginable topic. they're open until 11 PM every night and have lots of quiet corners for you to hide in while you read one of the dozen books you decided you couldn't let yourself buy that day, like a less austere library. they also host a monthly philosophy cafe, which i've yet to attend. a thing like that could be wonderful or brutal, but i'll never know unless i try, i guess. i'll probably check it out this month, and odds are you'll get a vivid report either way. this bookstore is now second in my heart only to the shire, the musty, floor-to-ceiling-shelved eden of my youth, whose proprietor still remembers both my face and my name. she's a special, special woman, whose business i would not at all mind inheriting one day.*** sadly, i haven't been able to find an unwritten-in copy of the katherine woods translation of the little prince at either place. a former roommate had a copy that i loved near unto death, and when i asked recently if i could maybe borrow it for a little while, he said he had "gotten rid of it." in my shiny imaginary world no one ever throws books away, especially not this one, but, well, i think he probably threw it away. needless to say, no one i know will be leaving their magical book palace to him any time soon.

4. the paradise, ever so aptly named, is far and away my favorite venue on the planet. not only does it have a second-floor balcony that wraps around the entire club, it has seats and sofas right up against portions of said balcony, so when i'm reading my book in between bands i can relax without ceding my vantage point. there's always a free place to park, even, so i never have to walk away with those "i know the second i hit the sidewalk they started playing the one song i've been dying to hear them play for the past ten years" blues. the paradise lounge, in the front of the building, is teensy-tiny and generally filled with a lot of people who aren't necessarily interested in the musical performance, and sometimes the security guards will try to hit on you, but the coziness of the room is unbeatable when it comes to acoustic acts, like evan dando when he's sans band or jay clifford, (former?) swoon-inducing vocalist of jump, little children (newly beloved of zach braff and oldly beloved of me) and rosebud and lovely, lovely, lovely man who once held a bathroom door for me at the iron horse in northampton, ma, and who played the lounge on september 24. he walked on stage and immediately asked the audience members what they wanted to hear, which was so precious and chill, and then he played every song we'd asked for, which was just fucking shocking. he was quite impressed with our knowledge of his back catalog, and he played us some new things, and the early sunday show ended in time for me to get home and watch metalocalypse, and i fell asleep thoroughly rocked and immensely contented.

5. september 27 was john hodgman at the b. b., and i'm sure you've had just about enough of that, so i won't say any more. i have decided, though, to lob a third pitch at the booksmith and see if it can at least foul its way onto a plate--tonight i'm going to do everything i can to both see and hear david rakoff, author of don't get too comfortable and fraud. my bar is now painfully low, so maybe i won't leave in tears. we'll see.

6. the last september event was yo la tengo at avalon, but i think i'm going to give that a room of its own. you'll have it in your trembling, sweaty hands before i get around to summarizing the jon stewart experience i'm looking forward to this friday, but that may not mean much in terms of expedience. i am doing all i can, kids, and even when what i'm doing has zero to do with this blog, you are never far from my thoughts. much love, people, much love.

over and out.










* there are still no curtains in the front room. please don't peep.
** i've succumbed to it as well and would beg them to take me in as their pet--if i didn't know how hard living alone rocks.
*** HINT