what beast would turn its life into words?

i (predictably) have not read my flist since i got back to school, but tonight i am procrastinating hardcore, so i have come crawling back! HALLOOOOO, WORLD. i have really nothing to say except that i have twelve days to write two conference papers, so i am going to do the only possible logical thing and share two songs wot i have been playing obsessively the past couple of days.


cannot stop watching or listening. it has been stuck in my head forever, so i am hoping to infiltrate your brain too so as not to be alone. HUZZAH. is also a really excellent break-up song.


this one has no video, but it is an awesome awesome song about addiction, which automatically makes it my favorite ever.

PLEASE DISTRACT ME FROM CONFERENCE PAPER HELL, FLIST. I EVEN HAVE UPLOAD LINKS IF YOU ARE INTERESTED! HERE IS "THE YOUNG THOUSANDS" AND HERE IS "SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW." PLEASE BE MY FRIEND SOMEBODY TALK TO ME I HAVE BEEN STARING AT THIS SCREEN FOR SO LONG OH GOD WHAT IS SLEEP

I KNOW this is pretty obnoxious on account of how I just posted about two seconds ago. But. Vonnegut was such a fantastic human being whose words needs to be shared at every available interstice, I swear. Here's the full quote, because I am evidently in a sort of typing-up-other-people's-words mood tonight:

No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC

Now, during our catastrophically idiotic war in Vietnam, the music kept getting better and better and better. We lost that war, by the way. Order couldn't be restored in Indochina until the people kicked us out.

That war only made billionaires out of millionaires. Today's war is making trillionaires out of billionaires. Now I call that progress.

And how come the people in countries we invade can't fight like ladies and gentlemen, in uniform and with tanks and helicopter gunships?

Back to music. It makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it. Even military bands, although I am a pacifist, always cheer me up. And I really like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the whole world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. All pop music today--jazz, swing, be-bop, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stones, rock-and-roll, hip-hop, and on and on--is derived from the blues.

A gift to the world? One of the best rhythm-and-blues combos I ever heard was three guys and a girl from Finland playing in a club in Krakow, Poland.

The wonderful writer Albert Murray, who is a jazz historian and a friend of mine among other things, told me that during the era of slavery in this country--an atrocity from which we can never fully recover--the suicide rate per capita among slave owners was much higher than the suicide rate among slaves.

Murray says he thinks this was because slaves had a way of dealing with depression, which their white owners did not: They could shoo away Old Man Suicide by playing and singing the Blues. He says something else which also sounds right to me. He says the blues can't drive depression clear out of a house, but can drive it in the corners of any room where it's being played. So please remember that.

And--of course--here is "Blues from Down Here," and, as is my wont, ( lookee there are the lyrics: )

In my quiet moments, I totally think Vonnegut woulda been a TV on the Radio fangirl. He would've liked that they freely admit they have no idea what they're doing and that "A lot of bands have something to say...[they] have something to ask." That seemed like a pretty bitchin'-ly Vonnegutian sentiment to me anyway. Here, let me continue this post's theme, and leave you all with another profoundly inspiring quote from the mouth of Mr. David Andrew Sitek:

"Most of the music that I like was made on dope. There is no way I could play a song back to myself 3,000 times unless I was stoned. I don't ever want to repeat myself, so I try to be not too conscious of the process...Sitting in my underwear doing bong hits is how I get a mix to gel."

motherfucking \o/!

So, I (finally!) saw Milk today and yeah, I may have cried. Just a little bit. I am feeling pretty inarticulate at the moment, but suffice it to say that this review rocks. If you haven't seen it yet, GO DO IT. If it's, um, still playing anywhere. I am always the last person ever to see movies, and this unfortunate fact is showing. /o\

(And dude, what is up with Josh Brolin, and why has he been playing so many terrifying Republicans lately?)

Apropos of nothing, my brother is on sabbatical from being an Internet Tyrant tonight! By which I mean my internet is impressively faily, by which I mean that whenever I download/upload music the internet (thereby affecting every other computer in the house) crawls along at the relative pace of a slug on weed, by which I mean that computer-addicted brother goes bonkers every time I want new music. WHICH MEANS THAT TONIGHT I HAVE THE INTERNET TO MYSELF AND HAVE BEEN DOWNLOADING LIKE A MAD THING WHICH MEANS THAT I AM ALSO WELCOMING YOUR REQUESTS WITH ALACRITY! Um, I have no formal pdf of my library, but here's my last.fm if you want to have a poke around.

Also: Y HALO THAR, NEW FRIENDS! *waves* Haven't checked my flist yet today (first impression for the ages, right), but SUP? I might write up an intro post tomorrow, but if I don't, I've got to update my user info so it says something other than "I like 'A Softer World' comics and stealing 'A Softer World' comics and putting them in my user info" pretty soon anyway, so you know. Whatever comes first.