it is birthday time for my special sister and i have dedicated my most recent track to her. personally, i feel it is one of my greatest and she would expect nothing less.
so i've been writing a lot lately and recorded this little poem - it's kind of cute.
it might be in preparation for miranda july who is performing/reading/being awesome this thursday! hooty hoo!
fact 1: lots of music these days is digital (i.e., why paris hilton sounds halfway decent on her record)
fact 2: lots of digital music sounds the same - i don't care what kind of machine you are using, a drum machine clap is a drum machine clap is drum machine clap (thanks for the allusion, gerty).
fact 3: the knife's off-the-hook jam, "heartbeats" is an off-the-hook jam
fact 4: the knife's "heartbeats" also boasts a cool three remixes released on the album deep cuts, not to mention that grizzly bear mash-up and - overkill?
hear me now, 2007, because i am warning you: there comes a point in time when a song is actually less enjoyable after its chorus line is slutted out to every rex the dog and tommie sunfuck. don't get me wrong, i love hearing my favorite songs mixed and mashed specifically for the dancefloor just as much as any other dancing fag or betty. and i know this phenomenon isn't new. it's not only an excellent way for artists to take advantage of their fans but also an efficient business strategy, generating more buck essentially for one bang. i applaud these tactics because laziness is sweet and so is money and they go all too well together.
i guess i just wish (because people can do that in 2007, too) that those in The Industry - and even laptop dj's - would exercise more caution when working on a new project. isn't it time someone publishes some sort of etiquette guide for remixing and mashing?
apparently, not soon enough for new young pony club. R.I.P. "ice cream" - that song is done. overdone. overdone done. overdonedone done.
did you peep all that link dropping? shoot.
i'd like to throw a little love mom and dad's way for the last exceptionally blissful few months. since december, i have been living in college student fantasyland - no job and nothing but net.
don't get me wrong, i wanted to be employed. but after leaving a perfectly fine cafe job to (*unsuccessfully) pursue a scummy "barback" position at one of seattle's most notable and exclusive coffehouses, i felt an overwhelming sense of monumental failure. who would do such a silly thing?
a boy with Big Dreamz, that's who.
i began looking elsewhere. after months of stumbling around this drizzly city packing resumes and my best "i need this job" smile, i found myself utterly disgruntled and without work. my Big Dreamz to be a barista were slowly deflating, my options dwindling.
a certain hipster-cool, clothing store began haunting me. it would be entirely appropriate for me to apply for a job there, granted that a good portion of my wardrobe already dons their label. and yet, i agonized over it for weeks; to apply or not to apply?
could i subject myself to the rather pretentious reputation this particular store held? was i compromising my initial aspirations? was i even pretty enough? i can't even begin to recount how often i vocalized hesitation about applying to the aforementioned clothing retailer. and if/when i did indeed apply, i ultimately feared getting hired (which i've since learned is not the best way to get a job).
on a damp, gray day not unlike any other day in seattle, i was riding the bus home from school. i didn't get off at my usual stop because i had to swing by the bank before heading home. in doing so, i passed by the clothing store. i had a resume in my bag and the thought crossed my - no, keep walking. my outfit wasn't even that spectacular, now was not the time. after the bank, i ended up retracing my steps, passing by the store once more, provoking my conscience even further. but this time, instead of averting my gaze, i shot a guilty glimpse through the store front window to find an employee waving me into the store!
this has never happened before, i thought. i mean, this particular female employee and i have a rather loving relationship - she helped me pick out mauve leggings - but we don't even know one another by name nor are we in any position (by seattle standards) to act like friends.
"hi," i say.
"hey! we were just talking about," she motions to another employee, the assistant manager.
"i beg your pardon?"
"yeah, do you want a job?"
uhhhh...
"what?"
"yeah. we think you should work here. we've been trying to get you in the store to apply."
...huh?
"um. okay. well, i have a resume in my bag. do you want it? ha. ha. i've been carrying them around in case something were to, um, just fall in my lap. ha. ha. haha."
after much needed nervous laughter, i made friends with these two employees. handshaking and name exchanging ensued. the whole time i'm thinking how people don't just get pulled off the street and offered a job. especially, when such a position at such a store has been built up into an enormous moral pickle, invading daily life and even dream states. is it just my luck? or worse, a curse, a jinx?
or could these employees see the unemployment on my face when i would longingly peer into the store, breath fogging the glass. could they sense my irresolution, knowing i just needed a little shove in one direction? either way, these people were actively pursuing me and in doing so my mind was made. i later found out there had actually been two MORE employees vying to the be the one that found me first. and that's when i foresaw my life as a seattle celebrity.
or at least my life as a seeminly aloof, hipster-cool, street fashionista with a mile wide ego, saoking in the pretention of it all. that must be how this store works; they make you think you belong there, pump up your self-esteem with some highly unlikely scenario that you are "chosen" and poof! you're hot and snobby and ready to sell t-shirts.
i might have failed to mention i still actually haven't been officially hired. but i at least have applied.
*since publishing this entry, i have reapplied for the same barback position at the same cafe, which might completely negate all of the headway i have made with the clothing store
last night, i had the pleasure of a rare screening at the Grand Illusion Theatre of the no longer reproduced, 1987 robot romp classic, Too Much.
Too Much, titled after suzie's robot boyfriend of the same name, is a touching exploration of the love between a girl (played by Bridgette Andersen) and her robot.
set in tokyo and the surrounding countryside, this film hinges on technologically forward japanese culture, barely exploiting such cultural signifiers as traditional dress, the interchange of l's and r's, and the kawaii phenomenon (see final scene; japanese children protesting robot freedom).
accompanying her father on a business trip to japan, suzie is introduced to her new robotic playmate by her robot engineering uncle tetsuro. when it is time to go home to america, leaving too much behind is unbearable for suzie and the two take to the city in a courageous attempt to escape being separated. the reported runaways spark a national search, sending them on a zany and reckless adventure through tokyo with the police hot on their trail. as if they weren't already in deep in it, the evil dr. fInkle teams up with the police in order to apprehend too much and steal copy state-of-the-art computer technology for his own robot engineering needs. suzie and too much find they are in "too much" trouble.
yes, some most aspects of this film are pretty hard to
swallow (i.e., evil dr. finkle's bumbling fatty cliche of a
henchman, adequately teased with such epithets as "cake muncher"), however, its
attempt at capturing high-technology is distraction
enough from the worn out characters and draggy plot. most of the contraptions resemble rector set-speak n' spell hybrids, R2D2-rejects, and bulky plastic slow things laughable in 2007 (ha ha). but any 80's afficinado will indefinitely find these (wet?) dream machines for simply amazing.
cinematically bright and colorful, i enjoyed the film's quick and often spastic cuts synchronized perfectly with the movie soundtrack (if anyone own this soundtrack, i will pay top dollar). the score is simply mesmerizing, blending asian influences and 80's bubblegum pop for an aggressively catchy and danceable experience.
featuring healthy doses of kick ass robots, side ponytails, slap stick
antics, and terrible child acting, this is 80's filmmaking at its
worst/finest.
okay, so my blog habits haven't fully developed. but my garageband habits have developed into a weird addiction.
these are the latest tracks off of an album i am calling hot pink & crazy.
cut and fresh. wheretofour marches on!
i'm still feeling sour over my encounter with bruce sterling at the uofwa on wednesday.
shaping things was incredible! uplifting! and frighteningly cool! and don't get me wrong, so is bruce. but whatever headway he makes in theorizing what the future can/will/should be like, he lacks in tact. TACT, bruce! it is a four letter word that you didn't use in your vocab lesson (which we will get to shortly).
inside a stuffy classroom in the mechanical engineering building, a crowd of grad level comp. lit, geography, and design majors, predominantly white and male (imagine that!), effused ego-stroking praise toward sterling (who can be heard tonight at town hall). being familiar with the book was crucial to his talk, which was essentially 90 minutes worth of terminology interdispersed with commentary about his love for "fabbing" and timo arnall (my favorite phrase: personal thing awareness). the vocabulary bruce presented was mainly from shaping things and from what i assume were brainstorming sessions with timo (as his name came up close to 100 times). overall, his overhauling of the english language was interesting and nonetheless useful, as it allows discussion about super nutty things that DON'T EVEN EXIST YET.
at one point, he named a slew of juxtapositions, describing the mood we are soon entering;
"theory vs. theory objects"
"failed modernism vs. keith robinson mashup"
"new world order vs. new world DISorder"
- so cool!
but about his tactlessness. maybe it was his fumbling over my gender - which is totally permissable, but annoying - or his quickness to dismiss not just my question, but basically all questions, or maybe it was his blatantly sexist jokes (e.g. Bluetooth allowing users to connect and exchange data wirelessly or as Burce described, allowing one to wirelessly "tooth" women - what the funk?!) that left such a bad taste in my mouth. what i experienced was good ole' fashioned disrespect.
- uncool.
better luck next time, bruce. keep writing and thinking. and for all those that read this as slander - wait a tick, why are you reading this? who are you? no one knows me, no one.
out.
