fleet foxes

Next Monday, I am going to see the Fleet Foxes in concert. These days, I'm not really into concerts anymore. I get too tired and the crowds wear me out. I'd usually rather get up early and go hike up a mountain instead. But I am making an exception. My friend Kristen introduced me to the Foxes several years ago. They only have 1 album and 1 EP released so far, but I love them. They sound like Crosby, Stills and Nash meets a chanting monk. It's lovely stuff.

I'm going to one of the two sold out shows in Seattle with my roommates. Sadly, Mike can't go because he doesn't live in Seattle anymore. If anyone would like to go with us, let me know. We have one ticket to spare.

suspicious, at best

Forbes.com:

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

no sleep for ol' patricia

Bit of advice for you. If you watch the 2008 Best Picture, No Country for Old Men, don't do it before bedtime. Especially if you are like me, and are behind the times with the amount of gore and suspense that you tolerate. You've really got to keep watching disturbing, gross, bloody stuff to remain properly desensitized, so that you don't have to hide your eyes for 1/3 of the year's best film, and miss it. I stayed up late to the watch the movie, then spent the night re-watching it in my sleep instead of sleeping.

It was however, good for what it was. The plot was crazy and you never knew what was going to happen next. Very anti-Hollywood. The entire film you are filled with that intense fear, first felt by me, in Terminator II. The merciless, killing-machine robot, ready to strike down whoever he crossed without any human emotion or respect for dignity. In this movie though, the scary robot is now a regular person capable of the same thing. A psychopathic killer that could live down your street or at least in west Texas. And not a crazy psychopathic killer with obvious symptoms of mental illness, a totally sane one, which is worse. Hi-ya!

the big screen

I watched two movies recently. The second was Tranformers. Classic pretenders. Just going to put it out there and say that it was awesome. Good fighting, good animation, good writing, good humor. Which was just what I needed to recover from the first movie - Into the Wild.

I loved it, somehow. I could identify with the character's life questions, rejection of the status quo and desire to move. The farther he got, the more I loved it. I mean, who rafts the Colorado river in an old plastic sea kayak? Intense. Real. Alive. Then he got farther and I wondered how much farther he would wander. How many more people will he leave behind? How long will he let his broken past force him into a compromised future? By the end, the tragedy was so crushing. To want to finally choose the right thing, but be too far gone into the wrong that you can't go back. There was no forgiveness. I was depressed for two days after seeing it.


I thought of my dreams of sailing away, surfing away, or whatever I have to do to avoid being a slave to the wage. What if after being away for a short or long time, I too might lose my connections with people and home and any chance of a normal life? What if my travel idol enchants me to the point where I choose to be the weird aunt and by the time I realize that having a house and family is actually a thing that people do not because it's normal, but because it's great, I have gone too far and can't go back? Could I sound like a person in my late 20's any more than I do right now?

Into the Wild has an amazing soundtrack. I recommend seeing the film with hesitation (even though I loved it), but recommend the soundtrack wholeheartedly.

nine to five

I love this song by Dolly Parton. It's my recent life in a nutshell.

Tumble outta bed
And stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yawnin, stretchin, try to come to life
Jump in the shower
And the blood starts pumpin
Out on the streets
The traffic starts jumpin
And folks like me on the job from 9 to 5

Workin 9 to 5
What a way to make a livin
Barely gettin by
Its all takin
And no givin
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
Its enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it

9 to 5, for service and devotion
You would think that i
Would deserve a fair promotion
Want to move ahead
But the boss wont seem to let me in
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me
Mmmmm...

They let your dream
Just a watch em shatter
Youre just a step
On the boss mans a ladder
But you got dream he'll never take away

On the same boat
With a lot of your friends
Waitin for the day
Your ship'll come in
And the tides gonna turn
An its all gonna roll you away

Workin 9 to 5
What a way to make a livin
Barely gettin by
Its all takin
And no givin
They just use your mind
And you never get the credit
Its enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it

going in on the weekends

I have blogger's block. This is a symptom of my life being really quite dull lately. I had to work Saturday and spent most of Sunday feeling guilty for not being at work more. My well-groomed work flow was suddenly upended Friday and now I have more things to do than I like. I haven't traveled anywhere since last November and I haven't been to the mountains since early September. Surfing is out of the question when the temperature drops below 60. I'm trying to turn my cabin fever into positive cabin relaxation time. At least I have a good book to read (Three Cups of Tea) and some fun sewing projects wrapping up.

I also just saw the play 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' which made me cry. I was thinking afterwards that I have never experienced racial injustice like what happens in the story. The closest thing might be some unfairness because I am a woman. Even that has been very subtle, which is something to be thankful for. There is a hip, young church here in the city which preaches the most infuriatingly false ideas about a woman's role in this world and her proper relationship to men and her children. I first heard a sermon from this place online and just about ran through the wall I was so mad. The others I have listened to since were just as awful. The feeling I get when I hear this man proclaim my inferiority must be similar to what one feels when being put down for their race. It's a beastly world sometimes, but To Kill a Mockingbird is a great story about 'getting inside someone else's skin and walking around in it for a while.' If only I would stop and do that before I open my big mouth everyday. Maybe I can work on that over the long winter since little else is going on.

radiohead have made a record

There is a new Radiohead album. I know, I am the last one to know and the last one to hear it, but it's still news to me.

Thom, Jonny, Ed, Colin and Phil have taken the edginess that they are known for to a whole new level. The album itself is solid, solid, solid. I can't wait to hear it again as soon as it's finished. Song #8, House of Cards, is my favorite. The other edgy part, however is how they have distributed their music this time around.

They basically fired their record label, recorded it themselves, and sell it only through their own website. You can't get it on iTunes. You can't buy it at Sam Goody in the mall. Or even Sonic Boom on Capitol Hill. You go onto the website, which is comically simplistic, enter the price which you want to pay, and then download it. You get it in a Zip file as MP3s (the original, and for me, only way to buy, store and listen to digital music). If you want a record, CD, etc, they sell a box full of those things too.

Genius. Not only are they making a statement by giving the record label the kibosh, but you pay what you want for it. There is so much controversy right now about file sharing and music stealing. The record labels think we don't want to pay for art anymore. Since Radiohead doesn't need any more money, they are just charging people what they want to pay for it. And people are paying! I could have downloaded it for free, but I paid £4.45, or $10. Apparently they have had 1.3 million downloads already. Genius.

I am a little sad about not having a new CD to unwrap and look at, but it's time to get with the times. My CD rack is full anyway. I think my most favorite part about all of this silliness is what's happening with the cover art. Normally there is a cover made and it comes up on your music player or lives in your CD case. In this situation, there is nothing. So people are making them! I found a whole blog with people's own cover art. People are taking their own interpretations of the music and the title and making cool art. This picture is the one made by the guy who runs the blog, and is coincidentally my favorite. I think I'll print it up for the CD case I made for my burned copy of the album. So dope. Cheers to Radiohead. Your album is really, really nice.