thanks for being my girl

Unabashedly crooning songs of a gay subject matter, Jay Brannan is like a sweet commercialized version of Antony. While Antony warbles with immense heartache to lyrics such as those in "Be My Husband" -

Be my husband and I'll be your wife
Oh daddy now now love me good
Be my husband and I'll be your wife
If you want me to I'll cook and sew

Brannan's melodious tenor almost shade the darker themes underlying his lyrics, which half-laugh/half-bring-you-to-your-knees. For example, "Housewife" -

I wanna be a housewife
What's so wrong with that...

I like to wash the dishes
I like to scrub the floors
Don’t mind doing his laundry
What are boyfriends for?

Despite being a sucker for silvery voices, I'm not sure how I entirely feel about Mr. Brannan. By using lyrics involving the words iPod, Craigslist & your text messages were like no-calorie food for my soul I'm not certain if he's being flippant or genuinely serious.


Half- Boyfriend - Jay Brannan
Bird Girl - Antony & The Johnsons

look, i find some of what you teach suspect

For those who don't know, I've had two important obsessions throughout my life: Gilmore Girls & musical theater.

So it was interesting to discover that Wayne Wilcox (Marty in Gilmore Girls) also has portrayed Fabrizio (The Light in the Piazza) & Gordon in the film version of Rent. His role in the film was small, but not insignificant - because I remember coming out of the theater thinking "That solo was my favourite musical moment."

When I find a line sung with such shocking honesty, I usually rewind to the build-up of said moment & repeat it to exhaustion. It's some pathetic form of musical indulgence, & when the (generally weak) film soundtrack came out, I did exactly that with this clip.

wonderbloom

Mary fell in love at least twice before spring came. Looking for the driest land, she'd kneel down over the sallow, fractured ground & try to pray. Sometimes when she'd turn to ask if it meant anything, the streams would come. Always come the yearning rain, the kiss stains by her feet, the last ring I gave her she lost.

I don't know quite how to put to words what Anathallo feels like.

oh what can it mean to a
daydream believer

(why don't you marry it, then?)

When I really get down to it all - when I stop caring where they're from (Mt. Pleasant, Michigan), what Pitchfork rated "Floating World" (2.7), & what instruments are at work (flute, flugelhorn, harp). It all sounds very questionable, but still, it would be a mistake to not listen to them.

Hanasakajiijii (Four: A Great Wind, More Ash) - Anathallo (2006)
Dokkoise House (With Face Covered) - Anathallo (2006)
Nonias Field - Anathallo (2008)

strong opinions

Puttering around the used book stores of Edmonton, it's as if there's been some retail conspiracy to keep the supply of Naipaul up, Neruda down, & Nabokov nonexistent. Checking under "N Authors" of the Chapters that dot this flat land, I've consistently found myself frowning at a pair of rouged lips (that lilting "Lolita"), at best accompanied by a copy of "Pale Fire."

After my consumerist bust I grumbled, I heeled myself in the shins, I headed to the library. A most singular place within our unassuming city! Shelves devoted to Nabokov & not one coquettish "Lolita" (the darling was out on loan). I've been very happy ever since & last night was reading "Strong Opinions" - a collection of interviews taken across the decade of 1962 - 1972 compiled & republished by the great man himself. In the forward he famously writes "I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child."

Nabokov's interviews are biographically & philosophically enlightening (although he calls himself a writer without social intent), often hilarious, & always poetical. Since yesterday I've been walking around repeating "Loll-LEE-ta" & "Vla-DEE-mir Na-BOH-kov" - if I will actually exhibit my newfound comprehension of such "proper" pronunciations is indefinite. If you can stand to not be thrown off by his rather charming arrogance, I highly recommend the aptly titled "Strong Opinions."

Just a thought - being also a gifted lepidopterist he makes me wonder how many great poets we've lost to the fastidious world of science.



"Do you know how poetry started? I always think that it started when a cave boy came running back to the cave, through the tall grass, shouting as he ran, "Wolf, wolf," and there was no wolf. His baboon-like parents, great sticklers for the truth, gave him a hiding, no doubt, but poetry had been born - the tall story had been born in the tall grass."


"There is John Shade in Pale Fire, the poet. He does borrow some of my own opinions. There is one passage in his poem, which is part of the book, where he says something I think I can endorse. He says - let me quote it, if I can remember; yes, I think I can do it: "I loathe such things as jazz, the white-hosed moron torturing a black bull, rayed with red, abstractist bric-a-brac, primitivist folk masks, progressive schools, music in supermarkets, swimming pools, brutes, bores, class-conscious philistines, Freud, Marx, fake thinkers, puffed-up poets, frauds and sharks." That's how it goes."



"IN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION: WHAT SCENES ONE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE FILMED

Shakespeare in the part of the King's Ghost.
The beheading of Louis the Sixteenth, the drums drowning his speech on the scaffold.
Herman Melville at breakfast, feeding a sardine to his cat.
Poe's wedding. Lewis carroll's picnics.
The Russians leaving Alaska, delighted with the deal.
Shot of a seal applauding."


Lolita - Throw Me The Statue

stand over there

I was thinking today how incredible it would be if I could just somehow receive all new music completely filtered of reviews & ratings; what they're called & what they wear.

Don't look at me like that - you've judged a band by its album cover too.


Christian pop + Country = Soul - Pitchfork

but hey! not a problem

Approaching the front door you eye the note taped on the mailbox that reads: "If you need the keys - they're in the mailbox."


All that & he didn't even bother to lock the door.

throwbacks/already?

Two summers ago, Paperweight came down & could potentially have slapped seventeen-year-old me across the face - instead it drew up the bedsheets & sang me to sleep on repeat, repeatedly.

Joshua Radin "Paperweight" at the Last Kiss premiere