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08.26.05 Starting tomorrow morning, I'm going to be offline for a while. Don't expect much from me in the way of updates or emails, because I don't have DSL yet at the new apartment and on first inspection, can't find an open wifi signal to save my soul. It's coffee shops for me for a while! Update: Thanks to Matt, i've got my DSL plugged in a little early. Yay for new porn! # 08.25.05 I found an apartment. I'll be moving in this Saturday (studio, small, Mission-Dolores). I like it, despite it's size. And it's all my own. Suddenly, just like that, my life is about to be a whole different thing, my own thing, moving at my own speed and by my own vocation. Which isn't intended to give the impression that Jessie controlled my life, to any degree. But you give in certain areas, you make compromises, you evaluate your decisions against the backdrop of your shared life; for better or for worse. These things make up not the heart but the sinew of a relationship, and the idea of acting and thinking outside of their confines is exciting and terrifying both. So I'll do this, and I'll really be stepping into the next part. Jumping, actually. After I move this weekend, I'll be gone most of the following week. If there's anything that feels really single, really alone, it's going to be the traveling I'm doing for work; leaving early and coming home late, the empty apartment, making myself dinner, the unpacking and unwinding, the slow settling in, the feeling of silence even when I manage to fill the sound of it. I don't know what it will be like. I don't know how I'll react or how I'll feel. But I'll do it. # 08.20.05 One of the most exciting things that will happen in music this year is very very close to happening. On Tuesday, the new new pornographers album comes out. I've had a chance to live with this album for some time now, and I have to say that it's easily the best work they've ever done (saying a lot) and in my mind, the best album to come out this year, hands down. With this release, the pornographers have pulled together their sound and their disparate creative inputs (expected when you have like, 3 or 4 distinct geniuses contributing to your band) and have honed their sound into a perfect distillation of the indie-pop ideal. The album is complete and cohesive, and there's a real feeling of journey, completion and satisfaction to be found in it. Overall, it reeks of Carl Newman's doctrinal control (also honed recently, on his Canadian-government-funded solo album as A.C. Newman), yet the band's other major contributors shine here in a way they haven't before. Neko Case, for one, sounds as amazing and as controlled here as she ever has. In fact, her first song (and most amazing) Bones of an Idol is so reserved that I almost didn't recognize her. But it works, in a way that I wouldn't have expected this focused sound to do, especially for a band that has thrived so much before on being a big, hot mess. The new album, Twin Cinema, comes out on Tuesday and is well worth your $14. Or whatever they're charging for platters of music these days. I've posted one of my favorite (but hardly the only) track from the album, so give it a listen. And tell me I'm wrong. (Wait, really, don't. I've already been wrong once today.) # I've wondered aloud for a long time why there wasn't an open source anti-virus program. I mean, it seems like the perfect problem for the OSS world to tackle, since they're so good at security, response, and wouldn't tack on so many of those awful interface quirks and subscription bullshit that the AV software company's do. I was wrong. There is one. Does anyone use the GUI built for Windows or Mac? (Not that the Mac version would tell you how effective the software is, but still.) # 08.17.05 we've all got to get back to real life some time, so here's a link to a fix for broken ical search in 10.4.2. # 08.13.05 Jessie and I broke up. It's easiest to just say it outright. We've told family and close friends, so there's no shock to writing about this. I wish I could say something moving and beautiful about it (he did) but I only draw up a blank. We broke up, we're not together any more, I'm moving out, we're moving on. We're different people today than we were four and a half years ago. But you knew that. Everyone knows that. It's difficult, it's awful and it's sad; but so far, it's not as powerful of an event as I imagined it would be. It just feels like a change, a shift in direction. We still care about each other, and we're still treating one-another with the same respect and concern that we would have two weeks ago. It doesn't feel dramatically different. Which, I suppose, says something about why it's right. The thing that's hard is telling people. People who knew us separately aren't so surprised. People who knew us as a unit are taken aback. But now I've told you, and now you can come with me into the next part, the new part of my life. I'm excited and I'm frightened and I'm optimistic in the face of my own doubts. And I'm sad, so terribly sad, to be losing the man who was my partner through these kinds of challenges. # 08.02.05 according to pitchfork, electro-folk beauty queen patrick wolf has been arrested on suspicion of burglary. but don't worry, he didn't do it, and has a solid alibi. or so we're told. # « July 2005 | archive index | September 2005 » built with movabletype |
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