Peace, Love and Ringo

Thursday I treated my mom to one of her lifetime dreams: seeing a Beatle in concert. And not just any Beatle, her favorite: Ringo. Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band was her first rock concert ever and I'm pretty sure she had a blast. At least, that's the impression I got from her gushing, "Oh wow. I can't believe I saw a Beatle! Oh wow. I just can't believe it!"

Just in Case You Didn't Know
God Hates Fags: the music video

And as a public service, this guy Donnie, who claims to be a "reformed homosexual," lists on his website a bunch of the bands you should avoid because of their gay associations. The predictable ones are on there: Rufus Wainwright, Marilyn Manson (a "dark gay"!), Melissa Ethridge, Clay Aiken, the Village People, Elton John and the Indigo Girls (the last two are listed twice!). But he also includes Jay-Z and Frank Sinatra. I guess there's something we don't know about how friendly the Rat Pack actually was.

I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

Have Yourself a Mellow Little Christmas
If you bought one Christmas album this year, I hope it was Sufjan Stevens' five-disc Songs for Christmas, if you could find it. Took me all month to get my hands on one. It's nice to have something that's not your typical pop-star-does-"Santa Baby" album. Plus, who can resist a guy who includes in his liner notes and lyrics the directions to repeat the refrain "endlessly, until you can no longer sing, because that is when you know you've really made it" and to "feel free to play the wrong notes." My favorite tracks so far are "That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!" (this week's free iTunes song - get it now!), "Once in David's Royal City," "Come On! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!" and "Sister Winter." Those of the religious persuasion will also enjoy Sufjan's mellifluous versions of favorite hymns like "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing."

WTFat?
Everyone warns you about the Freshman 15, but no one warns you about Desk Job Dozen. I've just about worked mine off, though. Gym memberships are good for something.

Broken Record
So every once in a while I latch onto an album. Current such album: KT Tunstall's Eye To The Telescope. Totally diggin' it.

Just Wondering...
What do you know about bipolar? I'm reading up. Email me privately. Cheers.

Talk of the town
In case you're dying to know what everyone's talking about in this here Valley of the Sun, let me give you a quick rundown:

- The weather. When are we not talking about the heat?

- The serial killers. Don't worry friends, last time I checked I was still alive.

- And of course, the matter of most vital import: Steve Nash's shorn locks. (Please don't let it be a Samson and Delilah-type story. Please!)



They know me. They really know me.
iDiscovered the new iTunes "Just For You" Beta program today. It takes stock of any songs I have purchased from the iTunes store and then recommends songs or albums based on my history, the same way Amazon tracks what you buy and makes suggestions based on your past purchases. It's fantastic; it's going to help me determine which albums I need to buy next from Zia Records (they're cheaper, they're local, and I get the album art then). This is going to save me hours of indecisively holding up two albums and trying to figure out which one I need more urgently. Here's what Just For You has told me today:

- You own Yanke Hotel Foxtrot. We recommend Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens and Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron and Wine

- You own Transatlanticism. We recommend Silent Alarm by Bloc Party.

- You own Songs for Silverman. We recommend Ganging Up on the Sun by Guster.

- You own Dear Catastrophe Waitress. We recommend XO by Elliott Smith.

- You own The Photo Album. We recommend More Adventurous by Rilo Kiley.

All of these are albums that I've had the suspicion that I need to own. iTunes has somehow gotten inside my brain and has filtered out the wheat from my proverbial chaff.

Sunset and Soon Forgotten
Or, I've been listening to my "Sources Say: Good Songs From Good Friends" playlist for too long

I'm sick of missing my friends. But I'm mostly sick of feeling like I'm the only one who hasn't moved on. Growing up is a bitch.

Comic Relief
Or, I'm sorry, Jana, I just couldn't hold it in much longer

So Jana's boyfriend's last name is Caulk, poor guy. But he's a big boy (Caulk) and can handle himself. (I know, too easy). The people you should feel sorry for, though, are the two Polish sisters who married his brothers. (Yeah not exactly normal. Sometimes I worry about Jana.) Their names -- no joke -- are Anita Maya and Iwona (pronounced "Ivana"). Anita Maya Caulk and Iwona Caulk. Can you imagine being in the doctor's office when either of them is called back? Or being the teacher who has to call the mother to tell her that her little Caulk is acting up in class? And Megan was worried about not being able to name her children Jaun Tidd, Anna Mae Tidd, Mel Tidd, etc.

Evolution of a Music Enthusiast, side A, unfinished

Summer 2000 Nick, Brian and I spend a week volunteering at camp, reviving some of our old favorite songs. Vanilla Ice makes a comeback as we rap, “Alright stop! Collaborate and listen! Ice is back with a brand new invention. Something grabs a hold of me tightly. Flow like a harpoon daily and nightly. Will it ever stop? Yo! I don’t know. Turn off the lights, and I glow. To the extreme, I rock the mic like a vandal. Light up the stage and wax a chump like a candle…” Word to your mother.

Fall 2000 I fall for the cute blond guitar player down the hall in the dorm and simultaneously fall into the trap of trying to match my interests to his (see: 1996 and "Rebecca Lynn"). I ask him to introduce me to “good” music, and he lends me his Radiohead, Weezer, REM and Jeff Buckley CDs. I get into Weezer, REM and Buckley (especially REM), but have a hard time connecting with Radiohead; it’s a bit too weird for me. A month later he starts dating another girl (they met at a Weezer concert, but of course...if only I'd gone to that concert!), and I’m inspired to write really bad poetry. I read one of the poems, inspired by “Fake Plastic Trees,” at a FARC Spotlight open mic night.

Winter 2000 A boy makes me my first mix CD as a Christmas present. It takes me nearly two months to realize that meant something more than just wanting to give me some fun new songs to listen to. Oops.

2001 An ex-boyfriend and I had bonded over U2 before our inevitable breakup. It’s the fall of 2001, and he’s dating a new girl, but he, Erin and I head to St. Louis for a U2 concert. In my devious mind, I kinda see this as him cheating on her with me, even though our seats are actually in totally different parts of the arena; “I win,” I think in my darkest of thoughts, even though by now I’m pretty sure I’m not that interested in the prize anyway. The concert is post-9/11. I hadn’t felt personally affected by the disastrous events that September, but during the concert, when they scroll through the names of the people who had died in the planes, the towers and the Pentagon, the music swells around and into me, and I cry for the first time.

2002 I begrudgingly give into Pat’s invitation to join him and friends for a Ben Folds concert. I only know Ben to be “that guy who sings the song about abortion.” Over the next two years I will see Ben in concert three times.

Spring 2003 Traveling through Europe, my flatmates and I spend our first night in a hostel in Rome. I can usually sleep anywhere, but have the hardest time here because I feel lonely and out of place in our trio. I rely on the calming melodies of Coldplay sifting through my headphones to soothe me to sleep. Parachutes becomes my security blanket in foreign lands.

Spring 2003, continued Against my better judgment I fall for British Pop Idol Gareth Gates and his sitar-infused rendition of “Spirit in the Sky" for no reason except Indian-infused pop music is a fascinating novelty (plus he's just so cute!).

Summer 2003 Sarah hooks me on Guster during our Stateside reunion in Clear Lake, Iowa. “Come Downstairs and Say Hello” becomes the defining song for my senior year: “Dorothy moves to click her ruby shoes / Right in tune to Dark Side of the Moon / … / By this time next year I won’t be here” seems to sum it all up.

Fall 2004 My favorite new artists are on-a-whim purchases: The Postal Service, and The Format; I'd never heard the songs on Give Up or Interventions and Lullabies before purchasing the albums on the same day. Because The Format is a Peoria, Ariz., band, I feel totally hip to the local music scene.

Fall 2004, continued I finally see Garden State in the second-run theater nearby, and the personal connection I feel with the movie leads me to download the soundtrack from iTunes. This is my first iTunes purchase, a momentous occasion, for sure.

2005-2006 My musical tastes continued to be heavily influenced by my close friends. Sarah hooks me on Belle & Sebastian, and Megan tips me off on the fabulous Imogen Heap. Both musical talents quickly rise to the top of my These People Totally Rock list. I also spend an inordinant amount of time listening to the aforementioned Virgin Radio via iTunes, which means that I have England's World Cup battle call, "The People's Anthem," constantly ringing in my ears (and poor Jana's as well).

Fall 2006-2009 Currently in the studio. Will include new, innovative songs and probably a few remastered and rediscovered classics.

Chuck Klosterman An' Erica
(Get it? It's like his Esquire column, "Chuck Klosterman's America.) Last night my favorite bookstore hosted Chuck Klosterman at a local bar to read from his recent book, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story (book purchase count within the past two weeks is now up to 7. I told you, just slap the lable on me and cart me off to biblioholics annonymous). He was funny and witty and quite insightful, and nothing I had imagined him to be. I mean, I'd known from his columns, articles and books that he was funny and witty and quite insightful, but I'd always imagined him as being a funny, witty, insightful, dark-haired, wisened-yet-hip 40-ish-year-old man. It's amazing what images our minds will conjure with no physical descriptors to predicate our imaginations.

Anyways. I asked him what he thought about people who had once championed a small band whom they then talk down once the band "makes it big". The whole, "Death Cab for Cutie's work was really good five years ago, but then the O.C. played their music and all the overemotional teeny-boppers who want to starve themselves to be like Mischa Barton started listening to Death Cab and now their music is only a shadow of what they were" mentality. He said that he used to hate those people, because it showed that it wasn't really the music that these people championed, but the experience of liking a band they could call their own. (Warning: the following statement is a paraphrase and probably an amalgamation of several quotable insights from the night and is influenced by the single Fat Tire I consumed during the evening.)

"But then I realized that's the whole point of music. It's not just the music or lyrics themselves, but the whole experience. We listen to a Wilco album, and we like to say we enjoy it because Jeff Tweedy is such a brilliant lyricist, but really we're fusing everything we've experienced with music and Wilco and just our entire lives with the moment we hear Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for the first time and all that combines to influence our experience of the album and causes us to identify with a song or album. It's like how in the 80s I loved metal rock and then Metallica came along and all of a sudden everyone loved Metallica, and you'd ask why they liked Metallica, and they'd say, 'Well, they wear jeans.' But what does wearing jeans have anything to do with the band's musical talents? Nothing really. It's the experience of Metallica that attracted people. And if people liked Metallica because of their jeans, who am I to say that's not valid? And if these people are looking to identify with a little-known band because it makes them feel like it's their 'own' band, and then the band makes it huge, that experience is taken away from them. And really, who am I to hate them because they feel robbed of their experice? I can say they're idiots because obviously the music itself doesn't mean shit to them, but the music isn't as important to people as the experience of the music. So yeah, that's what I think about that."

You have to imagine him saying all this in a slightly high-pitched male voice with a hint of a lisp while holding a plastic cup of water as he sort of dances/shifts his weight from left to right and moves his hands all around like my mom does when she talks on the phone. He was brilliant, really.

You know what else is brilliant? The book store owner announced that none other than Mr. Jonathan Safran Foer will be coming in the fall. AND David Sedaris. AND Barack Obama. Are you starting to see why I love this place?

Evolution of a Music Enthusiast, the B Side
Or, a timeline set the soundtrack of my life, the 90s (and before)

1988 I make my first call in to a radio station (Q103.5 before it went country) to request a song. This is a big deal. I’ve never called someone outside of family or friends. I practice what I’m going to say to the DJ, and my mom makes me write down “Opposites Attract by Paula Abdul” on a pad of paper by the phone so I won’t forget the reason I called in the first place. I spell it “Apasits Atract.” I listen all night, but they never play my song.

1990 My friend Jennifer gives me The Immaculate Collection for my eighth birthday. My mom is not impressed with titles such as “Like a Virgin” and “Papa Don’t Preach” and makes me exchange it. I choose MC Hammer’s Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em instead, but hold a grudge until college, when I finally buy Madonna’s iconoclastic album for myself.

1991 I’m introduced to the concept of cussing when I hear my first swear words in “Ice, Ice Baby.” My aunt and her boyfriend buy me a New Kids on the Block poster for my birthday. It’s my first poster of a band, but I’m embarrassed, because NKB’s popularity is waning, and my friends will all think I’m so uncool for putting up a poster of the band that was so last year. We exchange the poster for a Vanilla Ice sweatshirt (in April), which I wear about three times in the fall because by then Vanilla Ice’s career has melted.

1992 The Brooks family buys a new van. It has a CD player rather than a tape player. We call it our CD player on wheels, since it’s the only place we can play the three new CDs we have: the Beatles’ Revolver, Hooked on a Beatles Tribute (a Beatles cover group), and the sample disk that came with the vehicle to explain how a CD player works. That summer we drive out to California from Kansas, listening to Beatles the whole way, and changing the lyrics of “Yellow Submarine” to “We all live in a green minivan…”

1994 My new church camp friends and I sing Ace of Base’s “Don’t Turn Around” non-stop all week, and I realize for the first time that the songs my friends and I listen to in Manhattan are also being played on the airwaves across Kansas and Missouri. I don’t know why this wasn’t more obvious before.

1995 I realize the power of lyrics to move the soul for the first time when I hear TLC’s “Waterfalls.” With the earnestness only a teenager can exude, I plead with my mom to appreciate the potent message in the lines, “Don’t go chasing waterfalls, please stick to the rivers and lakes that you’re used to.” She’s unfazed, and I just can’t understand why she doesn’t see the beauty in the message TLC is singing. I must be blessed with a higher appreciation of music.

1996 I learn that my middle school crush listens to country, and now the only station I tune my radio to is B104.7. I latch onto the song “Rebecca Lynn” because it mentions his name. I quickly grow tired of the music, but it takes me a little longer to grow tired of the boy. I realize that liking his music isn’t going to make him like me—a lesson I’ll have to learn several times.

1997 I quit piano lessons because my new teacher wants me only to concentrate proper Classical piano music, but all I really want to learn is Pachelbel’s Canon in D. She says that Canon in D was written for strings, and that I will be playing piano music. I respond by saying, “Wrong, I don’t be playing any music.”

1999 My first boyfriend mentions that he thinks I’m cuter than Christina Aguilera (this is during her “Genie in a Bottle” phase). Part of me doesn’t believe him, but another part of me will always feel an edge over the platinum blonde pop star.

1999-2000 I supplement my nighttime chats on AIM with friends (my parents let me stay up late to play on the internet!) with monitoring the radio station through my dad’s huge stereo. When I hear the telltale notes of a favorite song, I race to the stereo to press record and add to one of my mix tapes. I feel particularly cool when the Prom Queen and I drive off campus for lunch one day, the mix playing Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” followed by Eve 6’s “Inside Out” and she tells me what a great mix tape I’ve put together.

The second installment of "Evolution of a Music Enthustiast" to come soon.

I listened to the world end in London yesterday
Or, Cue R.E.M.

I've taken to listening to Virgin Radio via iTunes at work. I know, I'm a sucker for those sexy Anglo accents and references to U.K. locales (DJ: "Where are you calling from tonight, Arthur?" ARTHUR: "I'm out in Hammersmith." ME: "Oooh! Just a couple stops from Earl's Court on the Picadilly line!"). Most days it's the Geoff Show that's on air while I'm at work, and yesterday Geoff was counting down to midnight when it would become 6/6/06. Obviously that meant the day of the Devil was at hand and the end of the world would strike us all. So I waited, enraptured (hehe) as the clock turned 4 p.m. here in Arizona. The air went dead.

And then "It's the End of the World (As We Know It)" came to life. And all was still safe in good ol' Londontown. Whew. That was a close one.

Heaps 'o Fun
Last Thursday Betsy and I went to see Imogen Heap in concert. She was A-MAZING. Imogen, that is. Although, Betsy's amazing, too. She just doesn't have a freaking awesome six-year-old-rolling-in-the-grass-coming-up-with-butterflies-and-twigs hairdo or a freaking awesome voice. I can totally see why Megan wants to name all her babies Imogen now. There was this guy standing in front of us at the concert, we'll call him Bruce, because he looked like my uncle Bruce. Bruce wasn't so much "standing" as he was dancing, and he wasn't so much "dancing" as he was twitching. Taken out of context, I might have thought Bruce was having a seizure while standing up; I would have been pretty impressed, considering he would have been seizing to the beat of "Headlock." It seemed somewhat appropriate, though, considering Imogen's spritely, child-like stage presence; she releases that, dance-like-you're-crazy energy.

Sun'spolsion!
We scored tickets (in the rafters) for tonight's playoffs game, Suns v. Clippers. I've mentioned before my newfound love for the Suns before, but just in case you were wondering why I love them, let me enumerate the reasons:
1. The way Steve Nash shoots like he's tripping over a rope strung across the court at his ankles, and how he passes without a second glance to teammates behind him. Dude has eyes all over the place. Not to mention the fact that he's NBA MVP for the second year in a row, baby!
2. Raja (Rings My) Bell. Did you see the way he threw Kobe down in a headlock in game five of the series with the Lakers? I think he was a wrestler in a previous life. You take that big sniveling baby down, Raja!
3. Boris Diaw: what a strange amalgamation of cultures: a Black Frenchman with a Russian name. Oh, and don't forget that he's the NBA's most improved player this year.
4. The way when Eddie House enters the game he drowns threes like it's his job. Well...it is, I guess, but he's damn good at it.
5. Leandro Barbosa's humility. Assistant Coach Dan D'Antoni actually has to feed his ego during practice because the guy's got self esteem issues apparently. Now there's something refreshing in the NBA.
6. Amare Stoudemeire's fashion sense. I love seeing the odd shirt-and-tie pairings he puts together for his injured courtside appearances.
7. They just play like a team, like they actually like to play, and like they actually like to play with each other. Imagine that.

The high is over
It's like the feeling you get when you return from a mountaintop religious experience, and that's what a week with friends in St. Lucia is like - a religious experience. I've converted to island life. If anything, I'm about 98.3 percent converted to the concept of a destination wedding. I loved that we all got the chance to celebrate Megan and Jon's love for each other over several days. They exchanged vows and rings in the company of the people who loved not only the two of them, but who had grown to love the company of each other. All 36 of us sat at the reception dinner table with conversation that could outlast the mountains of food. Now that is how you celebrate the joining of two lives; it's a joining of families, of friends, and of corners of your lives normally separated by time, distance and circumstances. But in this week, Megan's and Jon's families, childhoods, collegiate-hoods and adulthoods collided with each other just for the chance to be a part of such an important moment of their lives (well, and a chance to work on our tans). There wasn't really much of a reception line at the end of the wedding ceremony; that's reserved for your traditional big-bang wedding where guests typically get a 15-second handshake with the bride and groom. There was much more than handshaking going on throughout the week (plenty of rum shots shared comes to mind...). And the reception dinner tables weren't segregated between cliques of friends because by that time we were all friends and conversation could flow easily from Brit to Yank, family member to high school classmate, groom's mate to bride's friend. The week could have only been sweeter if we could have shared it with more of Megan's and Jon's friends and family.

I left the island not only with a sunburn on my shoulders and mosquitoes packed into my luggage, but with new friendships, inside jokes, theme songs buzzing in my head (The Final Countdown!), new bug-eye sunglasses, sand in my swimsuit and several more couches I could crash on the next time I'm in good ol' Londontown. In the spirit of David Letterman, I offer the following Top Ten lists:

Top Ten Lessons Learned on the Island of St. Lucia
10. Mosquito netting is not just there for ambiance.
9. Rum and biscuits (cookies to you Yanks) make for a quality lunch when you plan to spend the day at the beach.
8. No one really cares if you wear the same outfit twice (or thrice).
7. Four-thonged flip flops are very uncomfortable.
6. The English can't play volleyball worth crap. This means that I can actually look like a quality athlete in front of somebody!
5. Mango juice and red wine makes for a great makeshift sangria.
4. Warm showers are for wimps.
3. Thank God for the tank top with a shelf bra. Who wants to wear a bra when it's 86 degrees Farenheit and 84 percent humidity?
2. Cows like mangoes; just be careful of the mango-induced cowpies.
1. Avoid the Miami airport at all costs and especially the Miami Airport Hotel. For such a major hub, it's a shabby excuse of a port of entry to the States.

Top Ten Cross-Cultural Experiences
10. Teaching the Brits how to play 500 in the ocean (and walking away with quite a few bruises on the arm and back).
9. Dom thinking my pronounciation of "bottle" was "butthole," thus sparking many requests for a "butthole" of rum/beer/wine.
8. Quizing Charlie to name all 50 states over breakfast, before the coffee sets in.
7. Learning that the best man's toast is more of a "roast" of the groom in the U.K. rather than a ode to the couple's love, and I think Will toned his down for the sake of the Americans present.
6. Jenny breaking out into the Australian national anthem.
5. Introducing s'mores to the English.
4. Tripping out when seeing Charlie wearing a KCOU t-shirt, purchased at the Blackberry Exchange in Columbia during his, Will's, Josie's and Rich's Great American Road Trip the summer of 2003.
3. Listening to Dom put on a Deep South/hick accent.
2. Watching the mute local groundsman shimmy up a palm tree, fetch some coconuts and weild a machete to skin it and create a hole from which to sip the coconut milk.
1. Watching Will and Josie get into a sparring match over the correct pronounciation of the word "scone" - whether it's like "cone" or "gone." Apparently this debate is as big as the "pop" vs. "soda" debate in the States.

Top Ten Lines from the Week*
*As I remember them; not meant to be verbatim.
10. "...That was after Uta gave birth to the Pitons." --Megan
9. "I drink so much rum I shit myself." --A cab driver's response to the boys' request for where they could find the best rum on the island.
8. Any line revolving around Will's "strap-on carry-on."
7. "Jon measures your level of chill by how often you wear flip flops, and Jon wears flip flops in the middle of winter in London." --Will in his best man toast
6. "And we all remember when Jon faked a case of SARS just so Megan wouldn't forget about him." --Will, again during his toast
5. "Maybe this is weird, but I don't think I'll ever cheat on my wife. I mean, I haven't yet, so I probably won't." --Another cab driver, just after he asked Jenny to join him and his wife for karaoke with the condition that he probably wouldn't talk to Jenny at all during the night since his wife would be there.
4. "I think you get coconut milk by milking the coconut teats" --Josie. "No, I do not think that is correct." --Nico's response.
3. Steve-O's unprintable comment about what he'd like to do to a certain type of person where after he'd had one (maybe more...) too many drinks during the stag night.
2. "We wish Megan and Aaron the best in their wedding tomorrow." --Tom (father of the bride) at the groom's (Jon) dinner; Aaron is Megan's brother. Many insestual jokes ensued.
1. "There is no drug problem in St. Lucia." --The justice of the peace in her words of welcome at the start of the wedding ceremony.

One more thing: a musical PSA
Go right now to The New Kentuck Quarter's MySpace page. This is Ron (Lindsay, Megan's Matron of Honor's husband)'s band. He sang at the wedding a song he wrote. While that song isn't available on their MySpace profile, you can hear several songs he sang for us around the bonfires on the beach. If you're on MySpace, add them, and if you're ever in the Madison, Wisconsin area, go to one of their shows. Do it.

The requisite pictures
Hen Night
Groom's Dinner
Retka-Tidd Wedding Ceremony
Wedding Reception
Around St. Lucia
Pictures at the Beach
Around Balenbouche Estate (The old sugarmill where all the "kids" stayed and where the ceremony and reception were held)

And for those of you who are feint of heart and don't want to wade through hundreds of pictures, here's a pared down album with all the essentials:
St. Lucia favorites*
*This will be updated Monday as there are a few of the best still missing

In short: Best. Holiday*. Ever.
*That's "vacation" to you Yanks.

A grab-bag of random thoughts
Our neighborhood smells like burnt popcorn right now.

I am super-excited that Google Earth has now been launched for Macs. I am not excited that Jack the Mac is too old to support the beta-version.

My feet feel claustrophobic in shoes.

I think I'm stuck-up. Either that or introverted. I'm still trying to figure out which.

I watched a documentary about a transvestite seminarian for the Phoenix Film Festival this week. I'm now obsessed with trying to spot transvestites on the street.

I'll admit it, I award myself a heap of cool points for being a Phoenix Film Festival Viewing Committee member. (Is this a revealing factor of my stuck-uppityness?)

I can't figure out how to get the creepy old man next door at work to stop bringing me cookies and offering to buy me a pizza and "watch you work" when I stay late during deadline week. Maybe a restraining order would work.

Despite the many permutations my faith has gone through in the past decade or so, one thing remains: I just can't give up on God.

I really like the cute green sock cover I got for my iPod.

I feel a connection to Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves because in her introduction, she talks about picketing in front of a Leicester Square theater, protesting the absence of an apostrophe in the movie title, Two Weeks['] Notice, which was showing when I was in London. I imagine her standing just feet away from me outside the movie's premier, she with her grammatically correct placard, me with my camera, whose film I wasted while waiting for Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock to appear.

I really miss my dog. He's been frollicking with his "cousin" at my grandparents' in Berkeley for the past week.

There are four books that I've started but have yet to finish sitting on my bookshelf. Each still has a bookmark saving my place. I'm starting to run out of bookmarks.

I really would not like to be a punter on a football team. That looks like the most vulnerable position on the team.

Bobby Darrin's "Beyond the Sea" came on the radio this afternoon. I don't really know why, but this put me in a really good mood.

go CoMo, go CoMo, go!
An excerpt from "Making the Band" by Erin Byers in this month's issue of Boston.

There's a particular smell that comes from a rock band at 4 in the morning--the semll of too many guys crowded into a small space littered with too many pizza boxes, too many cigarttes, and too many empty beer bottles. This is the smell wafting through a room at the Regency Hotel downtown in Columbia, Missouri, where the Boston band Apollo Sunshine is crashing for the night.
For the past five days, all that the band members had talked about was the marathon party they were going to have after they played a gig at Columbia's Blue Note club. It would be an all-nighter for the record books, the Perfect Hangover. Yet there we all were, slumped in a stinky haze--them, dazed; me, confused.
[...]
Groupies today are not the sex-crazed females portrayed in so many movies. Forget Kate Hudson in Almost Famous;* think John Cusak in High Fidelity.
[...]
We finally arrive in Columbia. The band has visited nearly every city between Boston and San Diego, but to the guys this college town is Vegas and Gomorrah combined. "Last time I was in [Missouri] I slept with two women," Gallagher boasts...


I wonder if I know either of those two women...

Also, Columbia was mentioned on NPR last week in a story about a guy (in CoMo) who started a Save Fiona Apple club and helped to convince her lable to go through with producing her latest record. I gave a little, "Woot woot!" in my car when I heard them mention Columbia.

X degrees from Nelson Mandela?
My dad is having dinner with the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Monday night. Sweet.

*Penny Lane was not a "groupie." She was a Band-Aid! Get it straight!

instant gratification
There are moments while I am enjoying a book, movie or song when it strikes me, this one sentence/scene/line is worth the entire book/movie/album. This author would deserve my $14 if the entire book had been one page with this scene printed on it. Or, that musician could forever be listed in my hall of fame because of those notes alone. Nearly every one of my favorite books/movies/songs has a moment like that. Here are a few that earned the distinction of Favorite in the past year or so.

books
• "I was born twice; first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." Opening sentence of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• "Mr. Jeavons said that I liked maths because it was safe. He said I liked maths because it meant solving problems and these problems were difficult and interesting but there was always a straightforward answer at the end [...] maths wasn't like life because in life there are no straightforward answers at the end." Plus the rest of chapter 101 of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
• "'Well,' [Hassan] said, 'if I may ask, why did the man kill his wife? In fact, why did he ever have to feel sad to shed tears? Couldn't he have just smelled an onion?' ¶ [...] Taught by Hassan of all people. Hassan who couldn't read and had never written a single word in his entire life. A voice, cold and dark, suddenly whispered in my ear, What does he know, that illiterate Hazara? He'll never be anything but a cook. How dare he criticize you?" The end of chapter 4 of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
• "'You see, the prophecy does not mean you have to do anything! But the prophecy caused Lord Voldemort to mark you as his equal. ... In other words, you are free to choose your way, quite free to turn your back on the prophecy! But Voldemort continues to set store by the prophecy. He will continue to hunt you ... which makes it certain, really, that --' ¶'That one of us is going to end up killing the other,' said Harry." The end of chapter 23 of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling.
• "CREAM RINSE Cream rinse always gets stuck in the upper rim of my right ear. [...] i will be driving and glance at myself in the rearview mirror and spot white goo hanging out in there. I'm always like, Again! The cream rinse! What's up with this?! as I wipe it off." Page 81 of Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

movie scenes
• Before Sunrise When Celine and Jesse are in the listening booth at a record store and try to avoid making eye-contact with each other. It's all done in one shot and I don't know how they did it without cracking up.
• Saved! When Mary confronts a cross at a church right after she's found out she's pregnant; she curses God and you know that that moment is the first time she's ever said a swear word in her life. It is the moment she begins to really examine her faith for the first time, too.
• Après Vous The entire job interview scene, especially the part where Antoine tries to mime "lobster" for Louis to guess.
• Garden State The scene in Sam's bedroom where she tells Largeman to create a unique moment, which will be unique because no one in all of history will have ever done that precise thing in that precise place and no one ever will.
• Be Cool Toward the end of the movie, the moment where Andre 3000 sips tea out of a dainty teacup, raising it to his mouth with the aide of his handgun.

music
• "I was waiting for a cross-town train on the London Underground when it struck me
I've been waiting since birth to find a love that would look and sound like a movie"
Clark Gable by The Postal Service
• "I'll tap the break while you crack the window
The smell of smoke is making my lungs explode
The 51 is backed up and too slow
Let's tune out by turning on the radio"
Tune Out by The Format
• The two chords after "I thought you could read my mind"
Trusted by Ben Folds
• The way Jen Wood says "lure" in "You've got a lure I can't deny"
Nothing Better by The Postal Service (OK, so The Postal Service makes the list twice...gotta problem with that?)
• "When I awoke I was on the highway
Highway
Highway
Highway"
A Movie Script Ending by Death Cab for Cutie

--

Will someone please call the surgeon
Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart
I recently found out a crush from my past is getting married soon. This affects me more than you know and more than I would have ever expected.

again! again! again again again!
Do you remember that free-throw cheer from the basketball cheerleaders? I've been tagged again, this time by both Sarah and Megan. I hope this doesn't mean I have to fill out the survey twice.

10 Years Ago I Was...
...abusing my privilege as an eighth grade front office assistant by using the class period to wander the MMS halls, delivering massive notes to my BFF Amanda and coming up with every excuse possible to pass by the 6th hour classroom of my crush. I was on the newspaper staff and took very seriously my job of recording events for the Papoose Press. (The Papooses will go down as one of the worst mascots ever, though far eclipsed by my dad's high school mascot: the Lambkins; there's no battle cry so inspiring as, "BAAAAAH!") I was also mortified periodically by random classmates coming up to me in the halls saying, "You won't believe what your mom talked about in SexEd today..."

5 Years Ago I Was...
...staying up until 2 a.m. and dragging myself to 8 a.m. Philosophy discussion with the rest of the FIG; sleeping in the third floor FARC lounge by the window unit (or in random people's dorm rooms: Tuttle, P@t Hea|y, etc.) because I suffered in my A/C-less dorm room; enjoying the chance to eat scrambled eggs, pancakes with chocolate chips and Belgian waffles for breakfast everyday; crushing on the sexy blond guitar player who lived down the hall from me; practicing for the big Homecoming skit dance routines with AX; pomping, pomping, pomping; trying to figure out if emphasis on "being saved" was a sign of a cult, like my dad had warned me, or just a catch phrase used by Crusade.

1 Year Ago I Was...
...still trying to figure out if I'd made the right decision; swimming in the pool on the weekends; looking for ways to get involved with Phoenix life.

Yesterday I Was...
...trying to solve the world's problems with the rest of the Sunday School class; sitting on a raft in the pool; baptizing Yolanda with her first car wash; eating dinner at Betsey's.

5 Snacks I Enjoy:
• Cereal, specifically Paul Neuman's blueberry cereal
• Mozzarella cheese sticks/Muenster cheese slices
• Plastic (chocolate) donuts from the vending machine
• Popcorn
• Chocolate suckers from See's candy

5 Songs I Know All the Words to:
• Yeah, by Usher
• Moon River, by Henry Mancini
• Tune Out, by The Format
• Nothing Better, by The Postal Service
• Miss Independent, Kelly Clarkson

5 Things I Would Do With $100 Million:
• Find a charity that I can really get involved with and give them half
• Buy my parents a stress-free house
• Move out and head out for a year on the road
• Invest
• Set aside enough to get me started wherever I want to set up shop when I'm finished traveling

5 Places I Would Run Away To:
• The West End, London
• The Artisan, Columbia
• A mountain in the summertime, Colorado
• Nice, France
• Whatever the special is on Go-Today.com

5 Things I Would Never Wear:
• Tappered jeans
• Blue mascara
• A Louis Vuitton purse
• Skin-tight pants
• Mini skirt

5 Favorite TV Shows:
• Desperate Housewives
• Arrested Development
• Cheers
• The Cosby Show
• Friends

5 Bad Habits:
• Messing with my nails
• Not putting away the clean clothes
• Yawning when it's inappropriate
• Visiting blogs too often
• Forgetting where I put important things, like my Visa bill

5 Biggest Joys:
• Standing on top of a mountain
• The smell of an old book
• Rich hot chocolate and croissants for breakfast
• Looking back through pictures like these, these, these, these, these and these
• Comments

5 Favorite Toys:
• Yolanda
• iPod
• The Widgets on the new Mac OS X.4.2
• Digital camera
• The raft that lets me float half in the water, half on top of the water

5 Fictional Characters I Wish Were Alive and In My Life:
• Albus Dumbledore
• Phoebe (from Friends)
• Peter Pan
• Nancy Drew
• Jesse (from Before Sunrise)

And Now I Tag
Margaret
Leisha
Maureen
Ann (If she still blogs...)
J-Dub

today is good
Not only is it the end of my working week (Good Friday is made better by having the day off), but Radio Paradise is playing "Come Downstairs and Say Hello." (Favorite Guster song.) And earlier today they played "Clark Gable." (Favorite Postal Service song.) It is a good station that plays good songs by good bands, not just their hit tunes.

This weekend will bring you a real post. I promise.

heat wave
I think summer has arrived.

Last night I saw Ray at the $2 theater. As I was driving home, I got off the 101 at my exit, Ray Rd., and thought, "Well, isn't that appropriate?"

I have the feeling I'll be coming back in to work this weekend. I could totally use an intern right now.

I've stopped listening to all the songs I downloaded onto my Mac at work, preferring to flip through the eclectic stations on iTunes. Right now I'm listening to Radio Paradise: "DJ-mixed modern and classic rock, world beat and more." I've totally been diggin ragae lately.

blast from the past
In honor of the release of William Shatner's collaborative CD with Ben Folds (that's one odd CD, folks), we at A Leaky Cauldron, of Sorts reflect on our first Ben concert.


Me, Ben Folds, Pat, Courtney.
(Don't Ben and I make a cute couple?) 

hit me
Tonight I'm going out to one of the local casinos with a girl I've met once, her friend and her friend's co-workers. We will see a show, maybe hit the slots and after a couple rounds of drinks, I will have friends.

because i miss those "i'm mike mincer and i want to be your jeweler" ads
I've been listening to BXR via their Web site live audio stream. It's great to hear Simon Rose's British accent and funny to hear them trying so hard to plug "The District." Also, when the Tigers don't play on national TV, I can catch the play-by-play. They've been starting every hour with a Bob Dylan tune in honor of his return to Columbia. It brings me back to the Dylan concert Tuttle, Kate and I went to freshman year. I bought a poster there that read: "Bob Dylan - live!" Since when is a concert not live?

vertiGO!
I was not keen on the new U2 song until I saw the iPod commercial. Now I'm counting on my fingers in Spanish just like Bono.