Category: music

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iPod

I didn’t know your iPod could become corrupted and stop working. The cure: restoring it to factory settings, which means you end up with an empty iPod. I just thought I’d warn the rest of you, because reloading 20 gigs of music was not what I was planning this week.

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Writing While Listening

I wrote most of My Husband Betty while listening to Rufus Wainwright‘s music, which is one of the reasons I thanked him in the foreword of that book.

She’s Not the Man I Married took motivating music; things like “Go Baby Go” by Garbage I remember listening to over & over again some nights, for its queer lyrics and sugary enthusiasm.

But now, this novel — which I started writing when I was first listening to a lot of Smiths — is now getting written to a soundtrack of nearly exclusively Elliott Smith, specifically XO, and some nights, I’m just so taken my how honeyed and gorgeous his voice was, and how much it saddens me that he won’t ever sing again. It’s just such perfect middle of the night music, somehow, full of longing and a kind of stubborn dignity, and the perfect soundtrack for this book.

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Firewater Redux

Right now, drunk, my only regret in life is not having had Tod A.’s lovechild. Really.

Tonight at Southpaw, here in the Slope, they were amazing – from the female trombone player to the Sikh drummer who was goddamned amazing.I haven’t danced so much for forever. Continue reading “Firewater Redux”

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Good Riddance, 2007 – #18

2007’s Best Self-Mockery

Sting, on being asked why the Police reunion tour now, asked (& I’m paraphrasing), “I mean, what else was I going to do? Make another CD of medieval mandolin music?”

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Marc Theda Bara Bolan

I did decide, after seeing the Theda Bara documentary, that Marc Bolan was her reincarnation. (Or a better guess is that Bolan knew about Bara, & was borrowing her vamp for his stage persona.)

What’s interesting to me is that both were the sex symbols of their time – one male, one female – and yet they look nearly exactly alike.