Obligatory music post
I don’t write much about music because I don’t feel that I’m qualified. I really love music, but I don’t have the knowledge and skills that would allow me to write about it in a lucid and intelligent way. However, these are several thoughts I’ve had recently that I want to share.
The Knife’s song “Heartbeats” is covered by Jose Gonzalez. Both are pretty awesome versions in their own rights, but Gonzalez’s cover is so hauntingly beautiful that I can’t stop listening to it. It also makes me incredibly sad and kind of nostalgic for something that I can’t quite put my finger on, but since I’m looking for any distractions from thinking about my impending student teaching, I’m okay with being sad and nostalgic.
The Hold Steady’s new album, Stay Positive, is pretty strong. Although Boys and Girls in America will probably remain my favorite, this one is fast becoming a close second. Of course, …Almost Killed Me is attached so tightly to my heartstrings that it’s hard to say, really. I’m aware of the fact that my love for all things Craig Finn might color my assessment of this band, but really, I love them so much.
“I’d have Craig Finn’s babies,” I said to a boy I met a few weeks ago. “That’s really saying something, because I don’t want to have anyone’s babies.”
“I’d have a sex change and then have Craig Finn’s babies,” he replied to me. I thought this was hilarious at the time. In defense of my character (and sense of humor), I’d had several drinks.
A good friend of mine once told me that he considered Beulah to be a band whose entire oeuvre was worth listening to. “I’ve never found one of their songs to not be worth listening to at least 100 times,” he said to me as we drove around St. Paul, Miles Kurosky opining about love in an abstract way on the CD player. He then told me that he felt that Beulah’s songs mirrored how he felt about love and relationships. I spent the next few days obsessively going through their lyrics, trying to gain insight into a very strange boy’s mind.
My friend’s extreme love for Beulah is analogous to how I feel about Missy Higgins. There is not a single song of hers that isn’t worth listening to. She’s amazing. I love her. If I were a song writer, I would write songs like hers. That’s pretentious. I don’t care.
These days, I’m also listening to a lot of Jaymay, Dance Band, Bree Sharp, and Mori Einsidler (who just happens to be my cousin, but is proving to be quite the musician).
Commence tearing my musical tastes apart.
Overhsare Meme
Found throughout various blogs, I’m a sucker for memes that let me talk about myself, because let’s face it: I like to talk about myself. So without further ado, let’s begin, shall we?
1. Name the singer/band/performer you are most embarrassed to admit you actually paid good money to see in concert.
Most people would argue that I should write the name “Hanson” down here, but I disagree. I first went to see Hanson when I was 12 years old, when they performed the free show at the Mall of America. It was insane on all levels, but it was probably the most fun that I’ve ever had at a concert. I saw them again when I was 19. I don’t regret either concert, nor am I embarrassed to admit that I still listen to them from time to time. They’re good people.
2. Which reality TV show have you watched more than once (come on. I don’t believe you if you say “none,” unless you don’t own a TV)?
I don’t watch much TV in general these days, and the few things I do watch are not reality TV, but I will admit that I watch American Idol every now and then, and I fucking loved Lisa Loeb’s short-lived show on E! called #1 Single. That show was high-quality entertainment.
OH AND ALSO: Kathy Griffin’s My Life on the D-List is starting up again, and even though I don’t have cable, you can be sure I’ll be couch-hopping to various places that do.
3. Which complete trash novelist have you not only read but enjoyed enough to read more than one book of his/hers?
A lot of what I read is trashy. I collect the Sweet Valley series by Francine Pascal as well as an assorted number of other YA series from the days of yore. I’ve also read all three of Stephenie Meyer’s books in the Twilight series (and will pick up Breaking Dawn when it comes out for sure), and while I pretty much hate everything that they are and stand for, I secretly enjoy them.
I’m also a fan of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series, which is all kinds of trashy. What else, what else? There’s a shit-ton, you guys. I read a lot of crap.
4. What sappy musical could you watch over and over and over again?
Isn’t the phrase “sappy musical” kind of redundant? I like to say that I’m not a big musical fan, but that statement is contradicted by the fact that I know all the words to the soundtracks for Wicked and Rent. I also love the movie Once, which is all kinds of sappy but remains to this day the most beautiful little love story/musical that I think I’ve ever seen
5. Who was your first celebrity crush?
Jonathon Taylor Thomas and Devon Sawa? Yeah, pretty much. I was so in love with JTT. And Devon Sawa’s little cameo in Casper was the stuff of a 9-year-old girl’s wet dream. I still think Devon Sawa is kind of attractive, actually, but the fact that Jonathon Taylor Thomas stopped growing at the age of like, 14 kind of weirds me out.
6. Who is the most embarrassing celebrity on whom you have a slight crush today?
Similar to the question about embarrassing concert-going experiences, I’m not sure that I have any embarrassing celebrity crushes. I have a terrible girl-crush on Jessica Alba. This is only embarrassing in the sense that she cannot act her way out of a paper bag. But she’s so lovely
7. What movie that everyone else and his cousin and even his dog has seen have you never seen?
There are a lot, I’d wager. I’ve never seen The Godfather trilogy, nor have I seen Casablanca. I haven’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life, either. I’m woefully uncultured, and I totally don’t care.
8. What were you drinking the first time you ever got drunk?
This is a tricky question, because I’m not much of a drinker. I got tipsy for the first time when I was 18, on Southern Comfort (woof) and Bud Light (good lord).
The first time that I got rip-roaring drunk, it was on White Russians, screwdrivers, and Red Stripe.
9. Which old re-run will you still pause to watch if you’re flicking through the channels and see that it’s on?
I’ve been known to watch re-runs of Friends, Sex and the City, and Saved by the Bell. But really, thanks the the wonder that is TV on DVD, I don’t really do the whole re-run thing.
10. What book/movie/t.v. show that only a fifteen-year-old would think is funny makes you laugh?
Any Judd Apatow movie, ever.
