OK Go!

How Aaron and Deena Became Entertainment Junkies

Listen To What The Man Said...

"Cuz when I was single / my pockets did jingle / oh I wish I was single again..." - brother/sister avant-garde duo Fiery Furnaces, aka Matt and Eleanor Friedberger. Reknowned for 7-9 minute-long songs that shift texture, structure, and melody often, and overall quirkiness. Next project: an EP with their grandmother!





"How can you grow old, you were my tri-umph" - The Delays, two sets of Scottish brothers carrying the mantle of the Hollies and the Byrds. One of them is named Aaron. I saw them warm up for Franz Ferdinand back in September with Thomas.

"Happiness has a smell I inhale like a drug"
"I found music / and he found me" -
gay band/performance artists Hidden Cameras, a blast of erotic fresh air riding a Phil Spector-like Wall Of Sound, and led by Joel Gibb of Toronto, who I am excited that I am seeing in LA with Brian in just one week!







"I see.. in a garden.. fields in glass.. where the sun shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiines... fields in glass for everyone" - neo-60s mod-psychedelic revivalists
The High Dials, just a few hundred miles east of Hidden Cameras and their very different take on the decade of love.

Cartoon:

Feliz Cumple, David!

Yet another birthday salute to a good friend. David is an erstwhile co-worker and New Yorker who has flown south to Miami for the foreseeable future. He may be even more fascinated with (and knowledgeable about) music and all things cultural than me or Bri. With David, I even have to look up a vocabulary word now and then (like 'anodyne'). It's quite refreshing. Today he turns 28 - that was a most special age for me, when I began to travel, and I fell in love with Andres (the lovely person seated next to David, in the yellow shirt, during David's recent visit to Argentina for a wedding. Andres and I were together for four years, way back when, and are still very close).

As you can see pictured left, David adapts well to local customs. That silvery cup in his hands with the silver straw is what Argentines and Paraguayans call 'yerba mate' (pronounced YER-ba MAH-tay), an odd, bitter, green tea that fills the silver cup and into which one pours boiling water. Some Latin Americans pour sugar into the mate, accounting for the high cavity rate along the River Paraná. David has seen and done much for a 28-year old. Just last year he visited six countries for the first time, five of them on business: Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Jamaica, the United Kingdom, and Trinidad. That same year, he worked at three different jobs, moved back and forth 1,200 miles, and never missed a beat. It's hard not to admire his creativity, gumption, and overall good, open-minded vibe. Happy Birthday, David.... (this is our friend Sergio Bungs's loft, btw, in the charming, tree-lined, cobblestoned, colored-cement laden wonder that is the Palermo Chico area of Buenos Aires)

Coming soon: Andres' pictures from his visit to Montevideo, Uruguay, the charming, sleepy, socialist, intellectual city on the other side of the Rio de la Plata gulf/sea arm from Buenos Aires.

Welcome Back, My Friends...
...To The Show That Never Ends

C, That Wasn't So Bad... C, It Was No Big Deal... Such are NYC's headlines as the C train, knocked out by fire nine days ago, comes back into service! You read that correctly: nearly full service (80%), 4 years and 50 weeks earlier than they originally thought : - ). Maybe our MTA should handle media for the Bush Administration... : - ) All that worry, for nought

The C Train was still running 10 minutes ago when I did an errand - obviously it wasn't scared by its shadow...

Below: a cartoon for the ocassion, and two photos from my birthday party taken by Thomas, who also posted one of these on his own blog. (my camera connection is still down).

Happy Birthday, Day !

Japan-tastic

Ah, Japan and Japan-imation: They set the standard for breathtaking, innovative imagery and stories with gut and heart that ring true. "Spirited Away," which I saw last week on DVD, was magnificent, and, with no intention of hype, I felt engrossed the way, as a kid, I was enthralled by "Willy Wonka" and "Wizard Of Oz." Don't miss out on this great experience - It left me hungry for me. It's the anti-Disney!. Note as well that the American actors who dubbed the cartoon for US audiences did a superb job.

Happy Birthday, Sunil!

Happy Birthday to my friend Sunil, born one day, and quite a few years, after yours truly. Sunil is pictured here with his boyfriend Fernando; I met them both last summer through Denis & Christian, my friends visiting from Paris who know their friends from Paris... Sunil and Fernando were on hand at my wonderful birthday party yesterday. In fact, just about every friend I have in greater New York turned out. I hope to post pictures of the party in a few days, when I resolve a few technical glitches...

Not So Hard To Swallow

Many have needlessly shied away from "Maria Full Of Grace" fearing 100 minutes alone with a difficult topic: drug mules, as the women who transport heroin from Colombia by swallowing small containers of it are called. I strongly encourage you to see it (it's out on Netflix) This movie doesn't beat you up with tragedy or hype it with melodrama, but tells an interesting story in a matter-of-fact way, and is very engaging and thought-provoking. Even more amazing: stellar acting from people with no acting experience or training, which makes it feel even more like they're living it rather than acting it.

The film's final half takes place in Jackson Heights, the South American immigrant barrio where I lived for a surprising 15 years.. For four of these years I lived was living with Andres, my South American first boyfriend. I can tell you that the network of support and connections shown in this movie are quite authentic.

Another thought: Maria longs to escape her dead-end life in Colombia, where she's stuck living with her mother and sister, earning minimally in a dreary job. It's poverty, I guess, but her standard of living is no worse than that of tens of millions of Americans, rural, urban, and suburban. It's not squalor - it's the soft poverty of limited opportunities...