Fear of a queer anything

Spaghetti Western String Co., half of which I cooked dinner for on Sat. night, won a Minnesota Music Award last week. They won for the "Eclectic" category, which Mike says is a euphemism for "Never Going to Make Any Money." My reaction is 1 part hells yeah to 2 parts well obviously--they're the hardest-working band in my house/neighborhood/major metropolitan area. I'm flashing back to when everybody suddenly started giving Miranda July awards, and I had to fight off that same threat of uncharitable "of course they're awesome, what took you so long to figure that out?" smugness.

What I don't get is why the Miranda July love hasn't shaken down yet to other comparable DIY multi-media video and performance ladyartists, like, say, Wynne Greenwood. Oh wait, now I remember, it's because she's an unapologetic radical lesbian feminist, and those are scary. Start giving them awards, and the earth might start spinning backwards on its axis. It's like how if we let boys marry other boys it'll only be a matter of weeks before people start marrying their mothers, and squirrels, and washing machines. If Christine in Me & You had gone around saying, "I am a radical lesbian" (not impossible, since July is hella supportive) would Cannes and Sundance and Roger Ebert have fallen over themselves to crown her their quirky indie heroine du jour?

Not on yr macaroni.

When fans try to talk

Tiny Mix Tapes did a Xiu Xiu interview recently that is the holy grail of awkward fan-musician courtesy waltzing. I really sympathize with the guy, and I think the result is totes better than he thought it was. I have done exactly two interviews in my life, and one was great, but the other was Mirah on live radio, and I had to watch about six hours of My So-Called Life beforehand to try to control my nerves. I spent the entire interview trying desperately not to to say, "Oh my God! Me too!" or kick her in the shins whenever I uncrossed my legs under the table. When you read or hear an interview, you never think about the spatial dynamics of the place it was conducted in--where the people were sitting, how they were oriented in relation to each other. I now believe there may be a secret epidemic of interviewer-interviewee shin-kicking running rampant in small radio studios across the country.

When we, the worshipful, starry-eyed shin-kickers of the world, are allowed to go back to our bedrooms to write free-for-all fan confessionals, the results are inspiring and opaquely personal at the same time. Witness Sara Sherr's Hot Rock-era Sleater-Kinney panegyric in the Village Voice; it has more than a couple of those magic music criticism moments where you realize why you do this in the first place, why you slog through all the hype and posturing and bitterness that are rock journalism: to find someone saying exactly what you had always believed in yr heart, but never said aloud. This style of writing is easy to take down. It's messy and esoteric and reads as if it were written in one frenzied, caffeinated sitting. But it's the mess and the esoterica that salvage the bits of shared emotional truth that traditional music journalism leaves behind. And without those, we're just auto-piloting our separate paths through record stores and murky clubs--alone.

Career opportunities

I am employed. It's not exactly curating at the Whitney, but it involves working with art, and opening up a big retractable gate with a key, so I'm six kinds of thrilled. In fact, one of my interview questions gauged my ability to deal with "angry artists" calling to ask why their art wasn't selling. Snap!

Of course, the angry artist pacifier job is severely part-time, so I am still roaming southeast Mpls daily in search of steadier work. I interviewed at an intimidating co-op cafe with six intimidating Cool Co-op Kids, their Coolness instantly recognizable from their hushed monotones and unshakeable ambivalence about everything except, on occasion, social justice and organic lentils. I had a halfway pleasant convo with one girl about bell hooks, but she seemed to be in the middle of maintaining a world record for Longest Uninterrupted Intense Frown (23 years?). Laughing around these people was like popping painkillers in the middle of a bunch of Christian Scientists. I thought they might actually call me back because, y'know, I've done stuff with collectives & co-ops & whatevs, but so far, no love. Maybe my Converse were the wrong color.

Why is it that all of the jobs I keep applying for are lady-powered post-punk bands (i.e. Shop Assistants, Waitresses)? Does this mean I should look into being an au pair? At any rate, I really need to meet rent so I can stay in my house, because it is so crazy fantastic. Like right now, as I type, my housemate's band is in the other room working out a Sigur Ros cover, cello and vocal in fake Icelandic and all. The tables are strewn with home-made press kits and posters and various promo detritus, and there are boxes full of their new EP in the corner. We eat zucchini bread and play Scrabble and talk about samurai movies.

Just one more job. That's all I need.

You could either be succesful or be us

It's not that there isn't great new music out there. There is. And it's not like I'm a CMJ/SXSW/Coachella-hater. I'm not. But somehow, I can't get excited about the Get Him Eat Hims and Feists and Go! Teams of the world the same way I did about bands four years ago. I'll bury my head in the sweet, deep sand of nostalgia and and whine that nobody writes them like they used to:

The Rondelles
I never understood how sexual "Like a Prayer" was until the Rondelles covered it. When Juliet sings, "In the midnight hour/ I can feel yr power," I have to blush and sit down. "Back Stabber" used to get played on Grrl Radio all the time back in the day and never failed to start a pogo riot in my bedroom. This band snuck out of my very own hometown under the Teenbeat roster, and though they're long since defunct, their mp3 page is still frisky.

Dada Stunt Girl
So Finnish. So awesome. So over. I wrote them up in my zine two years ago. Anarchist singer-guitarist Riikka is cute as a duck, reads bell hooks, ran Ladybomb Distro and apparently enjoys But I'm a Cheerleader. The DSG song "Femmenstruation Liberation" was about toxic tampons and smashing the state.

Switchblade Kittens
These SxE & feminist Kittens are still around, kind of, and have added "My Dad's a Janitor" to their back catalogue, which already includes "Ode to Harry Potter" and "All Cheerleaders Die." Say what you will about their song structures and Shonen Knife cartoon aesthetic--this band is the real fucking deal. "You'd Be So Pretty If" is every bit as urgent, essential, and oh-my-god-why-hasn't-anybody-ever-done-a-song-about-this-before as "Double Dare Ya" and "Suck My Left One."

Tuscadero
Another Teenbeat phenom. I played them on my radio show like they were going out of style...and um, they were. But The Pink Album is lyrical gold. No, platinum. To wit: "She's a latex dominatrix/ her rubber bras are made by Playtex/ the men hand over their paychecks/ to ride her down the road/ to safe sex...just because she's for hire/ doesn't mean there' s nothing to admire/ it's clear no fear for all of these years because/ no man can truly buy her." Melissa Farris was in Dame Fate for a while, but they just broke up this summer.

To say nothing of the Bangs, Frumpies, Peechees, Emily's Sassy Lime, and all 6,000 rocktastic KRS bands now surfing the permanent hiatus wave. Until any of these bands resurrect themselves or produce love children with Jenny Toomey, and while Partyline and Spider & the Webs are touring Europe, to treat withdrawal I prescribe liberal application of obscure YoYo comps and Bald Rapunzel 7 inches. If all else fails, check out an amazing Minneapolis band called Coach Said Not To and their song "Words That I Employ"-- it's guaranteed to cure what ails you.

Everybody get random

Waiting for the bus today, bench-sharer asks what my nationality is. I stall, genuinely nonplussed, "Uh..." He offers, "Bohemian?" and laughs so that I think it's some kind of dig at my clothes/age/general appearance. But no, he actually means Bohemia, as in the region of Germany. Dude is nice, so we breeze-shoot until the number 8 pulls up and I get on, and he guesses my age at "18 or 19." I realize I am officially over being offended by people thinking I look this young, seeing as how my footwear of choice have soles of about .001 in. and boost my full height to knee-high to a fire hydrant.

Turns out Lady Sovereign goes through this all the time, and shares my towering 5"1'-itude. Although how old is she, actually? Eighteen, offish, yeah, but who's to say she's not really 13...or 30? And why is it that, having broken stateside this year or whenevs, grime feels over already? All it needs is David La Chapelle and his "high octane" docsploitation and it'll be deep-sixed as a legitimate underground movement in no time! Which will suck, because one of the best things about grime as a genre was that it didn't have either "post-" or "neo-" in it.

I wish I could set up some kind of Lady Sov-M.I.A. compare-and-contrast action, even though M.I.A. is not true grime, because of the two of them, only M.I.A. is at all marketable as a booty-baring model/fashionista, and she's the one poised to tear up the U.S. media, not Sov, whose unwavering commitment to baggy tracksuits promises to keep her obscure, Jay-Z collaboration or no. Just look at the Galang and Bucky Done Gun videos. In terms of video-disseminated self-image she could go either way, planting her feet in the Wynne Greenwood/Le Tigre experimentalism of Galang or riding the chainlink fence humping of Bucky into jerk-off billboard diva superstardom.

Oh, dirty river

For some outlandish reason, my abilities to read the Iliad in Greek and summarize Foucault's repressive hypothesis (and incitement to discourse!) have not translated into marketable job skills, and I am still Unemployed 'N Angsty in Minneapolis. Every day I hit the streetz and plod, carless, out of Prospect Park and across the mighty Mississip into the Seward n-hood, going door-to-door with my charming intro line, "Do you happen to know if you're hiring right now?" Yesterday I wandered into a pottery studio where a bunch of punky art kids were setting up a show and listening to the Ramones. I wanted to throw my arms around their knees and wail, "Please! Adopt me! I'll be yr slave, yr personal back scratcher, just let me stay here with you and be yr friend!" Instead I pulled it together, hit up more businesses for apps and shook my fist at the downtown Mnpls skyline from the middle of the East River Road bridge, shouting, "Employ me, damn you! Employyy meeee!"

Maybe I picked the wrong Prospect Park?

I don't rock hard enough

Suck   
(sucked, suck·ing, sucks)
v. intr.
1. To draw something in by or as if by suction: felt the drain starting to suck.
2. To draw nourishment; suckle.
3. To make a sound caused by suction.
4. Vulgar Slang. To be disgustingly disagreeable or offensive.
5. To move to a city where you don't know anybody and have no way to get around; to spend weeks and $$$ getting ready for a job interview, to totally put yr heart and soul into said interview and give it all you have and get rejected anyway; to be living in a room without any furniture w/o the hope of ever acquiring any and sleep on the floor every night, and not in a cool punk rock way, but in a spinal injury way; to have yr box full of books lost in the mail and be told it will never be found; to realize yr love for music & feminism is worth jack shit, and that you're probably never going to get to do something you like, let alone believe in passionately, for a living.
6. To complain about yr life when it has not been completely destroyed by a hurricane.

More when the dust settles

I moved to Minneapolis today. Whoa.

The covers issue

How bad is the Fiery Furnaces cover of "Norwegian Wood"? All I know is that its badness is easily eclipsed by the Nouvelle Vague cover of "Guns of Brixton," which is the ass-wonkedest drivel blue ribbon winner of this and yesteryear. Being annoyed by this version of the song feels strangely purposeless and post facto, since people have been grousing that the Clash appropriated reggae through it for more than 20 years. Getting yr dander up b/c Nouvelle Vague are just now buffing it to a fine bossa nova sheen could be seen as too little late.

Still, though, lining up one of Collin & Libaux's Pretty Ladies to sex-purr, "you can crush us/ you can bruise us/ yes, even shoot us" neuters the original politics of the song to such a palm-to-forehead, context-draining extent that all you can do while listening is wonder if maybe it really is time to have that cavity filled. And the sketchiest thing of all is that this seems to be the point of the entire Nouvelle Vague project, i.e., rounding up some young (read: stupid) female (read: pure, innocent) vocalists, throwing them in a studio with canonical 80s dance/goth/punk/pop and laughing at the irony that ensues. Some mod French babe butchering the Dead Kennedys! Hilarious!

What Nouvelle Vague don't seem to know is that there are only so many legit reasons to cover a song. Three, actually.

Reason to do a cover #1: MAKING A BAD SONG GOOD
This category includes all tracks, as previously blogged, wherein women cover the dino-core songbook and make them queer/feminist, but also things like Clem Snide's Xtina-redeeming "Beautiful."

Reason to do a cover #2: MAKING A GOOD SONG GREAT
Remember when Bratmobile did the Misfits' "Where Eagles Dare"? That was this. Also, the These Bones cover of "Toxic," which is sadly unavailable now but far superior to Local H's Nirvana clone shlock-a-thon version (really, wait for the chorus).

Reason to do a cover #3: SHOWING THAT A BAD SONG IS, ACTUALLY, BAD
Paul Anka Sinatrafying "It's My Life" and anything ever touched by the Moog Cookbook.

Why, shall we turn to men?

Oh my god. Is the Nile flowing backwards? Did Fugazi sign to Arista? Something is seriously altered and effed up somewhere in the unvierse today because I saw the Michael Radford "Merchant of Venice" and couldn't find the queer subtext. Every critic this side of Camille Paglia swooned that it had homoeroticism spilling out of every last extra's doublet and lute arpeggio on the soundtrack, and all I got was Jeremy Irons looking alternately resigned and wistful. Philip French promised me Irons as "a sad, rheumy-eyed old queen," for fuck's sake, but he just wasn't. Some subtle early sparks, and that promising bedroom snog, and then nothing. And this is coming from me, remember, a person who can find the queer subtext in an empty bag of Doritos. It sucks 'cause there's just so much there to draw on; even played traditionally, Antonio and all of "Merchant" are gay as yr uncle. I mean, check the first seven lines:

ANT. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me, you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn.
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
That I have much ado to know myself.

Yeah. Uh-huh. Cf. like whoa The Picture of Dorian Gray, Chapter 2:

To realise one's nature perfectly--that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self...The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

And I'm not even going to get into the Jewishness-as-queerness reading, which totally works, or the Portia-Nerissa relationship, or the fact that this play has more mysteriously motivated cross-dressing than a college football team kegger. I guess I'ma just have to see Callas Forever instead.

A weapon/ we must use/ in our defense

DC-area Goodwills are the thrift retailers of champions. Not only do they generously proffer yr typical multiple copies of Synchronicity, Tapestry, & the complete works of REO Speedwagon, they will also cough up the Dead Milkmen, Roxy Music, Tommy & Substance on cassette for $.50 ea. in return for a few minutes' worth of crouching on a dirty floor and blocking the always-crowded paperbacks/video aisle. I got Beauty and the Beat on vinyl because, y'know, it's an important record--Return to the Valley of the Go-Gos is grittier and more interesting for punk histori-fans, but Beauty was the first #1 rec written and performed by a lady band (factcheck me in She's A Rebel) so it's a nice thing to have around as, like, physical evidence of the music industry's not-too-distant sexist jerkwad past. 1981 is way late, dudes. Also, Belinda Carlisle totally used to drum for the Germs.

On Thursday (last week) I did my last radio show. It was like The Last Picture Show, only with much less naked Cybill Shepherd. I played On the Outside and Sevenwhateverteen, during both of which I got more than a little close to crying, and said goodbye to the surf rock DJ with the show before mine, who gave me his best wishes and a business card with a picture of a wave and "Tsunami Soul" on it. That kid was alright. We bonded over the sad lack of in-station Gang of Four and sub-zero studio temps. GAFTMG, RIP.

Go go gadget teenage underground

Ian Svenonius accounts for electro & neo-psych-folk by way of Alan Greenspan. Nice to see somebody acknowledging that even the punkest and indiest musical mov'ts don't press their 7 inches in an economic vaccuum. It's all so original and thought-provoking I'ma forego all the obvious Sassiest Boy snark tactics. That segment on the Make-up in Songs for Cassavetes, though, wherein a 1997-era Svenonius rants, poker-faced, about using shows to bring the gospel to his congregation--that was the scariest, funniest, most wait-is-this-actually-a-Rob-Reiner-mockumentary moment of the film, outdoing even all those low-angle shots of a (purposefully?) unlit Calvin Johnson that made him seem like a lurking, shadowy misanthrope, a la the phantom of the opera, or Dr. Claw on Inspector Gadget.

Also off the K Recs radar, the PDX community continued to break new territory for awesome on Monday by doing a benefit show for Beth Ditto, who has no health insurance to pay her recent hospital bills. I hope things like this happen in Minneapolis, to where I am moving myself in two weeks. One of my future Minn. housemates is in the band Spaghetti Western, who are totes lovely and you should listen to right now. B/c of the moving process and the way it has been forcing me to spend most of my waking hours in airports and post offices, blog action may slow just a bit. For now I am back in the Arlington-DC corridor, trying not to get upset by the fact that my hometown neighborhood has become a Cheesecake Factoried, Williams Sonomaed, beer-flooded dystopia with more denim bars than music stores or flea markets.

Hungry like the Wolfe

The Partyline show at the Beachland tavern last night was sad and a half. I had thought all the old Bratmobile fans would come out, but they didn't. Or rather, they did, but they consisted entirely of me and Sara. So Allison Wolfe is up there in her "Fuck Bush" short shorts doing splits and high kicks and talking about Ralph Nader and cicadas and smart girls and feminism and leaving the dishes in her sink at home in DC before going on tour, and there are maybe 15 people on the floor. I kept glancing around as if to say, "Dudes, get off yr bar stools and show some respect!" It was a Tuesday night, and the first date of the tour, and Partyline only got their debut EP out a couple months ago. Still, though, their jams are raucous and rare and A. Wolfe is a one-lady musical institution/national treasure. Attention must be paid. Their tour hits every city in the western hemisphere (Euro dates w/ Spider & the Webs!), so show up and compliment Angela on her tiara.

I know I can dance

Have you ever willed something into existence with your subconscious mind?

After months of devoted daily listening, slogging through show after show of hardline evangelist Christians and Civil War surgery experts with only the occasional Donovan or Jeanne Moreau or Marianne Faithfull to break things up, Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein were on Fresh Air. One minute I’m sitting at my desk, tracking down the museum acquisiton numbers of ancient Greek pots for my research job and singing “Sold Out” to myself, and the next they're on and I’m scrambling around on the carpet trying to position my little Sony radio so it’s at the one spot on the floor where it picks up the NPR station without static.

I know Fresh Air is all big and national and everything, but it feels like my show, and Terry Gross is my lady, so to have the three of them together was like a feminist media summit/dream come true. Terry did call Janet “Janice,” though, which was a shame, and quoted Spin a lot more than was necessary. She managed to slide in a few quasi-musicial and performance-related questions, and for someone who’s been spending the summer sitting on her bed with her guitar picking out riffs from The Woods, this was really exciting.

Why do some people need to have heroes? Why do I need to construct these icons—these women—for myself to believe in who are braver and stronger and more confident and nimble-fingered than me? Because really, all it takes is one tremolo or one eyes-closed scream at a show and all of the old kill yr idols, worship-the-music-not-the-musician gospel is stone-cold breathless dead in my heart and replaced by the malingering, naive trust that This Lady Is Somehow Like Me, loves music the way I do and does all the things I’d do myself if I weren’t so shy and scared.

There is a manifesta about queer fandom to be written here. I think Mimi Nguyen may have written it already but I can’t track it down. If you know of anything, let a sister know. This weekend I am going to Minneapolis to humbly ask that fair city if it will adopt me and generally be kinder and gentler than Chicago was a month ago. Pray, y’alls, pray.

Hey Goo, what's new?

*POGO PRINCESS WEEKEND ARTS ROUNDUP*
(genuine Old West flavor, now with fewer brandings!)

FILM
Werner Herzog was on Fresh Air on Thursday and blew my mind talking about alienation and futility and the ecstasy of truth in art. I nodded so hard I got whiplash and the kittens stared at me. People have been comparing stuff to Safe for a long time, but Herzog's Grizzly Man is the real deal--Haynes' staring contest with loneliness and quixotic questing transplanted into the Alaskan forest. Herzog in this latest incarno also reminds me of Lars von Trier, only without the bloodlust for persecuted female protagonists. Which creeps me out.

MUSIC
Ladyfest is a-rockin' in Oly-town, right this second. See July 13th post for details & linkages.

Who would've thought the Sugarcubes were Iceland's late-80s college rock answer to Bloomsbury? If you love but sometimes have trouble remembering, as I do, exactly how the Duncan Grant/Clive Bell/Lytton Strachey side of that particular social dodecahedron mapped out, puzzle yr noodle with this one. Click, admire rare group pic, scroll for brainteaser bio.

BOOKS
Maria Raha's awesomely-named Cinderella's Big Score: Women of the Punk and Indie Underground came out way back in January but hasn't gotten too much publicity for some reason. Raha also had a piece in the old Seal Press anthology Young Wives' Tales (in spite of its alarming chick-lit jacket design, said anth was actually not so bad, and queer-inclusive, as I recall).

Inga Muscio's autobiography! Out! Now! Only it's not so much a true autobiography as it is Cunt: Part Deux zeroed in on race and revisionist history.

Ethic of caring less

At work I am archiving photos & press re: the Puget Sound Women's Peace Camp, 1984-1986 (Seal Press did a book on said camp called We Are Ordinary Women), and it occurs to me that, as suspected but never confirmed, all contemporary hipster haircuts originate in 1984. Seriously, if you teleported some of these women out of the photos and into the offices of Troubleman, they'd have an EP out and be up on Cobra Snake within 10 minutes.

Leafing through the May 1984 issue of Off Our Backs, which is off-gassing like whoa after 20 years in storage in a deathly acidic box, it also occurs to me that I hate Carol Gilligan so much because, on some level, I think she might be mostly right. And I don't want her to be. All that generalizing just makes me hella nervous...I mean, it's one thing to have theories about different kinds of ethics, and to point out that some are about fairness and some are about inclusion. But when you start gendering them, it just gets so screwy so fast. If boys want to be fair/just, and girls want to be nice/inclusive, what do you do with the boys who want to be nice and the girls who want to be fair? Do they not count? As a theory it completely fails to deal with outliers--in fact, ignoring outliers is what makes it work, and since I like my feminism to be all about accomodating and recooping outliers, I have never been partial. Kate Bornstein would totes defend me here, I'm thinkin'.

The (2nd) Pitchfork Ryan Adams interview is real, real funny and so, so worth reading. It's how music interviews should be but almost never are: anecdotal, kinetic, specific--fulla conjecture & breeze-shooting & theorizing & fan-fessing, not, "On this album I wanted to do something different" and "It's important to me to always push myself musically." Best moment is "the Ryman" (Adams' name for himself...?) explaining how Pavement & Daydream Nation birthed emo.

I am taking care of two kittens for the next week. They don't seem too interested in my guitar, but they love my Latin dictionary, hiding under my bed, and sitting on my window ledge watching the cars go by. Right now they are sleeping like the kitty dead, limbs splayed, paws outstretched, motionless save for the rhythmic swells of tiny, furry ribcages.

********

Cherchez le context

I went on a pilgrimage today, like some kind of punk rock Wife of Bath. Only the Wife of Bath is already pretty punk rock to begin with. And I definitely haven't had five housbondes at chirche dore. And instead of going to Canterbury I went to Cleveland. But I totally could have worn a kirtle.

I took a bus and then a train and then a trolley to get to the closest movie theater in my area that is playing Me and You and Everyone We Know. The turnout was pretty robust considering the heavy competition from penguins and ballroom-dancing youths. I did an okay job of keeping the snob reflex in check, even when the woman behind me said to her companion, "This is her first film, you know." I did not overreact and turn around and point out, "Well actually, this is only her first full-length. Miranda July did not just emerge fully formed out of the seafoam of Sundance and Cannes. This movie, like her other art, has a context and a history and a resonance with things outside itself. It has a past and an evolution and a milieu and a long personal chronology of struggle and development and influence and all of that good stuff, so please get yr facts straight or go to KRS or EMP Live or something."

Meanwhile, back in the lady ghetto, Sarah Dougher has started a new record label and no one seems to care ('cept Neumu and Julianne Shepherd). It's releasing her new record--you know, the one that was supposed to be based on the Odyssey?--and Sara Jaffe's extra-Errata solo rocker, too.

All tomorrow's boxsets

While I was reshelving my stuff in the pop vault after my show (an hour longer than usual b/c I was subbing) the next DJ, doing a Gravy Train!!! friends 'n influences theme, put on Annie (Me Plus One), and the metal director who was in the studio at the time asked,

"Hey, are you playing 80s?"
"No, actually, this is new. It just came out."
"Oh. ( a pause) Well, it sounds like the 80s, man."

Ah, Annie. Such is yr power.

Then Iggy Pop was on Fresh Air, hawking A Million in Prizes, and I Wanna Be Your Dog sounded so contemporary it was scary. Like it was written and recorded this morning. Iggy/Jim is so ironic and smart. I had a hunch b/c of Coffee & Cigarettes, but seriously, he used the word "inchoate." He wheedled in a falsetto, "Oh, I must go, I've just cut myself with glass! Do buy my greatest hits!" What did he talk about? Oh, you know--tribal behavior and its possible application to rock shows, Anglo-Saxon country clubism, Nico's sex tips, Balinese gamelan--the usual.

Ladyfest Oly II

Apparently someone is asleep at the Pogo Princess newsdesk, because I did not find out until this morning that Olympia is doing another Ladyfest this month, July 28-31. Scheduled performers include everyone I love, their mom, and their mom's mom. Potential wkshoppers, be aware of the fact that, in order to participate in Dame Darcy's doll-making workshop, you need to bring with you "at least 2, ideally 4" toaster ovens. A poor lady's Melora Creager she is not.

Despite the fact that I can totes not go, I am pleased nonetheless to be alerted to the existence not only of Tobi Vail's new band, but of an Oly trio called Mind Your Pig Latoya, surely the greatest hickster chic band name since the Be Good Tanyas.

Mean G/girls

Why is trying to move to Chicago, for me, always like trying to run through an invisible brick wall? The Live in Chi-Town Plan 2005, much like its late predecessor, LiCTP 2003, has blown up into a big fiery ball of death, thanks to my ex-housemates-to-be and their seventh gradeian ditching of yrs truly. No amount of dancing into furniture to the Cold Cold Hearts/Call the Doctor/Rid of Me is going to take away the punched-in-the-gut awfulness of it all.

While I'm trying to figure out what the hell to do now, please read this awesome Marxist-feminist analysis of Mean Girls, mean girls, straight girls who make out w/ each other, and the late capitalist networks that enable them. B/c of recent personal experience, meanness btw. girls isn't feeling mythic right now so much as terribly, terribly real, but it still makes hella sense.

The quality of mercy is not Chicago

Supermarket Sweep-style road tripping to a huge city to find a place to live in 6 hrs. is easy! Just pack the following to protect yrself along the way:

-The Color Purple, convenient travel-size mini-hardback edition
-Dvorak Serenades for strings, ops. 22 & 24
-Venus zine no. 24
-16 homemade mint chocolate chip cookies

I'll race you to Chi-town! First one back alive gets to shower!

I am not a rock promoter

The phone rang today while I was cleaning up the studio after my radio show. I remembered to say, "WOBC" and was greeted with,

"Hello, this is the Beachland Ballroom. How are you?"

Because I don't do much telephone-answering of this kind, this was a really, really surreal thing to hear--sort of like, "Hi, this is Mount Rushmore, what's up?" Or, "This is universal healthcare, how's it hanging?" It was even weirder b/c I love the Beachland so much. The lady didn't want anything that complicated, she was just confirming contact info or something, but I totally freaked out, forgot all but a handful of nouns & verbs and had to run off to get the station manager. I guess I'm really not cut out for music promotion. Cary IMed while I was DJing, though, and we had a nice talk. I am going to send her a postcard while she is still over yonder in Berkeley-town.

All the things that burn in hell are fashionable

There is nothing quite like spontaneously blowing off yr late-afternoon commitments to bake chocolate chip cookies. I used dark brown sugar and mint chocolate chips even though my recipe warned that this could only end in biblical-style wailing with a high likelihood of teeth-gnashing, garment-rending and the tearing of hair. But now they’s done and they tastes six kinds of awesome. So take that, Nestle. I only used yr chips b/c they were a gift, anyway. Death to the Corporate Cookie Ogre, etc.

Updates. This weekend I am going to Chicago. Please pray, everyone, that I do not get overwhelmed and emotionally ass-wonked in the manner of three months ago. Yesterday I took off on my bike like Miss Gulch reborn, jury-rigged rear metal basket crashing and bouncing all the way to the field in front of Splash Zone, where they do the fireworks show. These f-works are the best ever, DC pride be damned. While watching I developed a complicated theory about how this event is Oberlin’s pyrotechnic equivalent of a Sleater-Kinney show (something about precious semi-annual community bonding, transcendence, awe, and faith in humanity restored) but now I can’t articulate it too well.

My jobs continue to be ridiculous squared. Job #1 involves disassembling scrapbooks, reading The National Enquirer and listening to novels on cassette. Job #2 requires me to look at huge amounts of ancient Greek & Roman porn and to take notes such as, “men courting boys; satyrs; hermaphrodites; orgies; man fellating woman; terracotta plate w/ 69.”

I have heard three excellent records recently, two new, one not: Electrelane, “Axes.” The Books, “Lost & Safe.” The Need, “The Need Is Dead.” Axes is like this really amazing love affair between a guitar and a piano. They meet, they get together despite cynical, phobic naysayers (“A guitar and a piano?! On a dance-pop album? That never works!”); they consummate their love in track 4, are led astray by a nefarious saxophone in track 6, and finally break up in track 8. Who says this is supposed to be dance-pop? Lost & Safe is so good I don’t want to talk about it. And The Need Is Dead is THE NEED. Enough said, really.

***Track 4 of Axes is called “If Not Now, When?” Track 9 of Lost & Safe is called “If Not Now, Whenever.” Huh.

July will keep us together

Dear World re: my last post--I apologize. Me and You and Everyone We Know will do just fine. I suddenly got it when my dad told me on the phone that he wanted to see it. It was a fantastic moment of cross-generational detente & goodwill, almost as unexpected and lovely as having yr elderly next-door neighbor drop by and ask, "Pardon me, do you happen to have a copy of Girl Germs #2?"