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I seriously want to understand how these two beliefs work hand...

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:09:46 -0400

I seriously want to understand how these two beliefs work hand in hand. That God can’t stop kids from dying, but your prayers can help you find the survivors.

(read bottom to top)

TJ? Anyone? Help me out here. Because this is one of the most confounding things about religion to me.

"Sure we have our ups and downs, but every time I hear the key in the door, I know the party’s..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 05:56:37 -0400

““Sure we have our ups and downs, but every time I hear the key in the door, I know the party’s about to start.””

- Ann Bancroft, on living with Mel Brooks.

This pretty much sums up the wedding vows I’ve been trying to write.

True story.

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:30:56 -0400

True story.

X- Soul Kitchen feat. Ray Manzarek The Manzarek produced Los...

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:30:06 -0400

X- Soul Kitchen feat. Ray Manzarek

The Manzarek produced Los Angeles got me in to X and was a game changer for me as far as my music listening went.

I owe Ray Manzarek so much in regards to my music history.

The Doors - When the Music’s Over RIP Ray...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:13:15 -0400

The Doors - When the Music’s Over

RIP Ray Manzarek

I’ll probably write something about this tomorrow.

Gonna go listen to some Doors for now.

tiffanyb: guillee: If the new, redesigned Flickr with 1...

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:52:18 -0400

tiffanyb:

guillee:

If the new, redesigned Flickr with 1 terabyte of free storage is any indication of the way Marissa Mayer is going to run things, I am more than OK with their acquisition of Tumblr. Damn.

What Guille said. Tell me again how Yahoo is definitely, totally going to ruin Tumblr.

Welcome to Marissa Mayer’s flickr. It’s beautiful.

Watching tornado coverage

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:54:35 -0400

So devastating. And supposedly there are more storms coming.

Everyone in the area, stay safe. Thoughts are with the entire community.

Laboring vs. Labor of Love: On Writing For Page Views And Validation | Words

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:43:51 -0400

Laboring vs. Labor of Love: On Writing For Page Views And Validation | Words:

I wrote a thing at my new (old) site.

‘Don’t Swallow the Cap’ by The National is my new jam.

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:48:11 -0400

‘Don’t Swallow the Cap’ by The National is my new jam.

I have resurrected my first ever domain name.

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:37:20 -0400

Albeit with a subdomain.

Yep, I brought asmallvictory.net back to life.

All my serious writing, including my music stuff and 3am ramblings, will go there. Tumblr will be just for fun stuff and photos and posting songs.

I started it off by putting that National review there.

This was the domain I grew up with, blogging wise. It will always be home to me and I don’t know why I didn’t go back there sooner.

So look for me there, if you want.

(I’ll be linking to anything I write here).

The laser printer at work makes a noise like this song so I...

Mon, 20 May 2013 08:33:54 -0400

The laser printer at work makes a noise like this song so I think of it every day.

5:20 for 5/20.

The National, Trouble Will Find Me: Music to Dance With Skeletons To

Mon, 20 May 2013 06:05:09 -0400

I have a weird relationship with the music of The National. Most of the music grips me in places I don’t want to be touched, yet I listen over and over again, letting it not only touch me but embrace me, pull me in close and whisper in my ear. Sometimes it’s ok and I get a certain comfort from it, like somebody sitting quietly next to you, just handing you tissues as you mourn a loss. But sometimes it pushes a button and takes me to a floor I didn’t want to get off on. And I stay there. I stay on that floor with that music, with that awkward arm around me, with emotions that flood my heart and my eyes and I revel in it.

There are some albums more than others that force these feelings upon me. Boxer and Alligator both have the ability to set me on a path that usually ends in tears and a feeling like having your soul poked with a stick repeatedly.

And here is Trouble Will Find Me, an album that took just one listen to surpass both Boxer and Alligator in terms of emotions felt and fists squeezed around my heart.

Make no mistake, it’s not simply a case of lyrics hitting home. No, there’s so much more to the National and especially to Trouble Will Find Me than that. It’s in the tone, in Matt Berninger’s beautiful baritone, in the presentation and arrangement. It’s all put together in carefully constructed layers; a cake made of ingredients you find in your brain at 3am. All this beauty and sadness, all the poignancy and melancholy, crafted so precisely, so perfectly layered you can barely tell one piece of the cake from another, you just devour it without knowing which parts are which and you taste everything at once. You’re smiling, you’re crying, your heart is soaring, your heart is breaking, you want to turn off the record and never listen again and you want to listen to nothing but this forever.

So you listen. And your heart goes one way while your brain goes another. There’s a tug of war between your rational self and your emotional self, part of you just wanting to enjoy the intricate melodies, the lullaby lilt of Berninger’s singing and part of you wanting to just find someone to cling on to and hold tight while you weep and sigh and love and rage.

The best thing about Trouble Will Find Me is the best thing about most of The National’s music; each song is immediately familiar and known, a friend you didn’t know you even had until it knocked on your door and let itself into your world. You pour it a cup of tea and sit there talking about love and loss and fear and anger like you’ve been friends forever. In a way you have. Trouble Will Find Me is a culmination of all your inner thoughts and emotions come to life. That friend you’re having tea with, that song you let into your house and heart is just really a piece of you. The National are best at being familiar, at turning a mirror on you while you listen to their music so you’re never listening alone, there’s always your Demons to hang out with, there’s always the trouble that will find you, knock on your door in the form of album full of salt for your wounds and then offer you a salve for the sting.

If you are your own best friend and your own worst enemy, Trouble Will Find Me is a manifestation of self, something to listen to alone - which is really the way to listen to all of their albums. But you’re never really alone. You share this one with your demons, with your hidden skeletons, with all those 3am ghosts that hover around your bed. And you don’t mind. You don’t mind them coming out because my god, the music is beautiful and heartbreaking, music that needs to be shared, even if it’s with just the other parts of yourself that understand how a simple set of notes strung together can make you feel so much.

I’ve tried to foist The National on others to no avail. Maybe they don’t hear what I do. Maybe they don’t listen for it. Perhaps The National is one of those bands that you have to have a certain mindset to get. To someone else, maybe all the songs sound the same, maybe in a perfect world that voice and these arrangements and the low key cadence shouldn’t work. Maybe if you live in a world that has its share of cracks and sharp edges you can hear it. You can hear it in “I Should Live in Salt” and “Sea of Love” and you can feel it in “Slipped” and “This is the Last Time.” In a perfect world a band like this couldn’t pull off six albums of sounding exactly like the other albums, but in a perfect world we don’t need the comfort of songs that sound like old friends to sit with us while we mourn. In a perfect world, everything sounds like a pop song played on a car stereo on a hot summer evening, but this is not a perfect world and sometimes things need to sound like this, like the world is cracked and peeling and falling apart and the only thing that holds it together is knowing you’re not alone. So you slow dance with your demons and skeletons and ghosts while you listen to Trouble Will Find Me, knowing your cracked world is, in a way, perfect for you and whoever else finds their heart in these songs.

luckyshirt: The National paying tribute to Zvuki Mu with their...

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:27:51 -0400

luckyshirt:

The National paying tribute to Zvuki Mu with their Sea of Love video.

God damn I love this band.

Case in point.

The new National album has simultaneously broken my heart and filled it with joy.

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:23:00 -0400

Probably have about 5,000 words on it after I digest it again.

Also, I am enjoying it on a level at which I’ve yet to enjoy any new QOTSA song. I find this sort of worrisome.

Life’s greatest mystery will always be how you get from A...

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:40:59 -0400

Life’s greatest mystery will always be how you get from A to B while looking for things on the internet.

Suit shopping! Wedding stuff! on Flickr.

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:10:03 -0400

Suit shopping! Wedding stuff! on Flickr.

John Darnielle approves of my Sunday activities.

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:52:55 -0400

John Darnielle approves of my Sunday activities.

ShortFormBlog: Thoughts on Tumblr and Yahoo (in rebloggable form, upon reader request)

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:41:00 -0400

ShortFormBlog: Thoughts on Tumblr and Yahoo (in rebloggable form, upon reader request):

ron-bailey:

shortformblog:

obitoftheday asks: What do you think happens if Yahoo buys Tumblr? And why do we all agree that it seems like a bad idea?

» SFB says: I think Tumblr starts monetizing itself more effectively. For years they’ve tried to do everything but the obvious, but the problem is, they’ve turned down…

So we are all going to just pretend to ignore the fact that turning Tumblr into a money-making proposition will, without any doubt whatsoever, chase away the very things make it special in the first place?

Corporate profit and wonderfulness are mortal enemies. Money and goodness can’t exist in the same room. And if the platform did somehow turn a profit, the only correct thing to do would be to share the profit evenly among the people who actually created it - the community.

People don’t go into business to share the commodities they created for free. They venture into businesses - and tumblr is a business - to make money. Nobody puts their life and heart and soul into a business venture without the idea that they are going to get something in return.

To bemoan the fact that they will be able to make money is on the same level as when people bitch at a band for “selling out” when they go to a big label or sell their music for an ad. “Oh, look at that terrible band, able to pay their bills now! How awful!” And yea, we all know Karp has made money already and man of us don’t even like him based on stories and interviews we’ve read, but keep in mind tumblr is a company with employees and if those employees can keep their jobs and keep getting paid a reasonable salary because tumblr is turning a profit more power to them.

And to expect a company to share those profits with the users of its product is ridiculous. Would anyone expect the same of twitter or Wordpress? Would you expect that of any program you use? Does Adobe share its revenue with you? Did the makers of the Avengers share any of their profits with you, the movie goer who made them all that money? Does your brand of toothpaste send you a check every month to thank you for keeping it in business? Then why expect the same of tumblr? Is it because of the community? There are whole communities out there who keep tv shows alive but you don’t see the creators of Arrested Development handing out profit sharing checks.

You have no idea if a sale to Yahoo and the eventual money making off that deal will take away anything from tumblr. Who knows, maybe we’ll get enhancements. Maybe not. But you can’t say for sure that the “specialness” of tumblr will be gone. If the community of tumblr is what you are here for, that community will remain. It’s already intact and no amount of profit-turning additions or subtractions to the platform will take that away from us.

Sit back and see what happens. You may not even notice a difference. You may notice a good difference. You may decide it’s not what you want and move on. But keep in mind three things: 1. David Karp created a platform that people have chosen on their own to use and he owes us nothing, at least monetarily, for our use of this free product. 2. It’s ok for people to make money off of their creative endeavors. 3. This platform is free. It’s been free since its inception. Even if it as some point ceases to be free, we’ve all certainly got great use out of something we had to pay nothing for.

Also, I take issue with your claim that money and goodness can not exist in the same room. There are a lot of companies out there doing well and doing good at the same time. People can make a profit and still be good human beings.

Had a dream that Todd’s Spaceship Yamato tattoo came to...

Sun, 19 May 2013 05:29:31 -0400

Had a dream that Todd’s Spaceship Yamato tattoo came to life, lifted off his arm, picked us up and took us away from Earth.

They served donuts and coffee on board. And showed episodes of Pete and Pete on a big screen. Oh, and prepped us for war as we rode through galaxies looking for enemies.

I sailed the Milky Way on a giant tattoo.

Sometimes dreams are ok.

This song has appeared on my dashboard numerous times tonight...

Sun, 19 May 2013 05:14:51 -0400

This song has appeared on my dashboard numerous times tonight (thanks to Merlin) and that makes me happy because this song is the rightful holder of one of my favorite memories.

It’s an August night in a sweaty night club where a band just finished playing some synthesized music that left us flat. We were expecting a punk band - they never showed up and this lifeless band played instead. The doors to the club are open and we can see cars go by on Merrick Road, hear the shouts of kids walking home late at night. We’re drunk. We’re hot and sticky and a little deflated. But we don’t want to go home. Not yet.

Someone climbs into the DJ booth and puts on a record. This record. This version. And then we’re singing. All of us, singing. There are some red lights glowing from the stage and one of us sees those lights as a beacon and he walks up the stairs to the stage and dances. And one by one, we follow him. Someone turns the volume up. We didn’t sing any louder because you sing this song in a quite, revered tone, like you’re having a quiet conversation with your heart. And we didn’t dance harder because what you did with this song wasn’t so much dance, it was more like you moved to it, moved with it and when the “up down turn around” part comes you sort of bounced on your heels a little and moved your head around, and that’s what we did on that hot stage. We danced and moved and we sang quietly but together and we played the song two, three maybe four times until the owner said he was shutting down and then we moved out to the street and stood in front of the club, most of us still singing.

I can never define this song any other way. I can never think of it as anything but a glorious bookmark in a spectacular summer. I can never hear it as anything but the song we all carried close to our hearts like a secret that we needed to share.

It will always feel like magic.