S/FJ

GHOUL MORNING

ONE LOVES

Excellent mix by a Swedish person named Kocky, posted at the peerless Discobelle.

I talk about some books I'm reading.

DON'T RAIN

OPEN LATE

THE SELF

"There's really no 'you.'"

"Can you wash your hair, please? What do you mean?"

"I don't touch the tub. My foot touches the tub, or my hand touches the tub. 'You' is just a bunch of parts."

"........"

Y

It is not surprising that Alison Goldfrapp "started out as lead singer of various punk and goth bands." At Roseland, on Wednesday, she was more goth than disco. Odd, this. Her band transmits DISCO signals. They entered the stage to a massive old disco tune and they, you know, make disco records. But Alison has witch vibes. Strong, aspirate tone in her "normal" midrange, accurate pitch when she goes up for the theremin wails. But: she doesn't move. She's in a dance band. And there she is, not moving.

It doesn't matter that she wore a red jumpsuit/parachute truss/thing-only-famous-people-wear, showing lots of skinny leg and looking all cocaine Diana Ross. She rarely responded, visibly, to the beat. Not disco.

But! Then! All that Not Moving made sense because four skinny women in bikinis, wearing wolf? bear? masks, came out and did a choreographed dance to one of the big singles. It worked. If you don't know what to do on stage, invite the Four Hot Animal Ladies to join you. If it costs $5000, don't worry. (I didn't see opening act Teddy Bears, but their online presence makes me think there may be a connection there. Couldn't find any web pictures of the show.)

POSTSCRIPT: Joshua writes: "Knowing NOTHING but the name of the new album, I'm gonna guess Alison took the stage to the strains of "Supernature," by Cerrone, c. 1977? (also featuring humans with animal heads, as I recall)." Yes. That's what it was. Bad enough I couldn't ID it. It gets worse: the reissue of "Supernature 3," and three other Cerrone albums, are sitting about a foot from me. The gears grind slowly to a halt....

TECHNICAL WRITING

"Sorry I'm home late. I had to fix some of the words in my article."

"Which words?"

"Oh, lots of words."

"Was one of them 'butt'?"

"No, but it should have been."

"Yeah. 'The exclusive butt went on a remarkable journey.'"

"I should have said that. What other words should have been in my piece?"

"'Powerful' and 'boxing.'"

FALLING

DOVE

INTERSECTION

This continues to not become less awesome. Bow down, internets.

UNIVERSAL

HIDING

CHOMP

PIZZA BOX

LEICA VIRGIN

MY BLOCK

I am not often in my old neighborhood. Perhaps being mind-controlled by Time Out New York, I went to Fort Greene a month ago and took some pictures of my block. Unlike most of "my" New York, it is largely unchanged. (This is a somewhat meaningless distinction; commercial real estate turns over because it is commercial. Residential blocks tend to look the same, though not all do.) Here is the house itself, the view from the house, and the entrance to the park, which is the only part of Fort Greene I ever dream about.

BACK WHERE I'M FROM

The block I lived on thirty years ago has been named the best block in New York by Time Out. (Unless I am mistaken, our old house is pictured, furthest on the left—25 South Portland.) After living in this house and on this block—with plane treees that didn't move when it rained; a long, curved, dimpled bannister; stray cats who ate gerbils; and a girl who called me a punk at a street fair when I dressed, with full facial make-up, as Ace Frehley—we moved to another house in Fort Greene at 232 Carlton Street, located between DeKalb and Willoughby. In 1981, we moved to the Eagle Warehouse, on the edge of Brooklyn Heights. In 1990, I moved to Manhattan.

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND

God bless Diana B. Henriques.

UNLEARNING

SKETCH FOR THE FACE OF ARTHUR

I wish this movie were longer, right now.

British readers or Anglophiles with inside information—please explain this coconuts nonsense. Couldn't photos of Janet's abs be considered "unfair advantage"? How about James Blunt's apparently irresistible face? OutKast's wanton use of lenticular photos? What is the real beef between Beck and England?

Perhaps the following is a residual perception from the recent back and forth about CD mastering: this excellent album of recordings from the 1970s demonstrates how sounds and production values shift position over time, moving from group to group, section to section, purpose to purpose. While not mega-platinum, Little Feat were putatively a pop group in the 1970s. Now, you would only hear such drum sounds and flat recording style on an indie record, a fairly knowing one, or an alt country recording. Possibly a good one, though likely not as good as Little Feat.

CORRECTION

Julianne pointed out that my anniversary count is off. Before Abe Burmeister formed his one-man Bloggers Without Borders, donating server space and Movable Type software to writers (see Jessica Hopper, Joshua Clover and Philip Sherburne, all receipients of Abe's charity and members of the abstractdynamics.org family), I was poking along with a blogspot spot, named after a book I never wrote. Lame!

Here it was.

TODAY

is the beginning of our fourth year of blogging. Yesterday was the third anniversary of day one.