Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
In case you cared about the archives.
I finally got around the updating my copy of K2 (WordPress theme) to make it compatible with the newest version of WordPress. For the first time in months, the archives work again – which is probably only of importance to me.
Now – to work on a new look for this thing. Stay tuned. It’s time for an aesthetic overhaul.
(update: an interim overhaul, i don’t love this template – but it’s a change and i needed something to move me on from the old look)…..
As for listening.
It seems like ages since I made a listening or reading post here, and it’s not for lack of new material – so to get me back in the habit here’s a list of my recent listening favourites you might want to check out (as Kevin points out, my listening collection is a little weighted towards the darker of indie these days – but in my defense, I am really not all that angsty!).
Beirut ~ Gulag Orkestar and Lon Gisland (2007) ~ Beirut is essentially one guy from Albuquerque and a few of his friends but you really wouldn’t know it to listen to these albums. Gulag Orkestar (2006) particularly riffs on my favourite of the Eastern European brass sounds held together by lots of thumping accordion. Really impressive project in the vein of Devotchka with the aesthetic sensibility of Sufjan Stevens. I’m excited to see where Beirut goes as a project as a little more musical maturing would take it a long way.
Various (Stars) ~ Do you trust your friends? (2007) ~ Remixes and covers by various artists of the Starts 2005 album Set Yourself on Fire (a watershed indie album if there ever was one). Final Fantasy (Owen Pallett) doing the opening track is definitely the highlight of this collection for me, though I’m sure if I spend more time with this I will find others that resonate as much. Easy to listen to indie/electronic – definitely on the rotation this week.
Feist ~ The Reminder (2007) ~ Yes, I know. Everyone loves this album. So do I.
Headmix Collective ~ Birthrights ~ Last night, Kevin came over and told me to put this on my iBook. Although I can find little information about Headmix on the web, I believe this album came out in 2005. It is certainly a great listen so far (I’ve had it on the player this morning at work), though I haven’t had time to develop any greater analysis. Dub, traditional celtic fiddles and penny whistle, didgeridoo, hung on the frame of electronica with some heavy beats holding it down. Somewhat reminiscent of Shooglenifty but with political lyrics. Really. Take a listen.
Christopher O’Riley ~ True Love Waits (2003) & Hold Me to This (2005) ~ It is with great reluctance that I agreed to take a listen to these Radiohead cover albums which are done entirely in solo piano.Not because I don’t like Radiohead – but because I do (*love*) … I tend to stay away from all cover/tribute albums in fear of having the interpretations ruin the originals for me. But really, the solo piano does hit the right angsty note for all Thom Yorke’s beautiful minimalist melodies – a testament to the brilliant composition that exists beneath the indie-rock overlay. And now would probably be the time to also say that I really wish Radiohead would hurry up and put out another album.
The party after the party (Sunday).
Okay well, not really so much a party as an early-dinner and a chill-out this Sunday after the Car-Free Fest on Commercial Drive.
The plan? Come over to my place when you get burnt out of the hordes of partiers on the Drive and have some dinner with me and whoever else comes there. I’ll pick up ingredients for something like burritos and then we can just make food together (and feel free to bring something if you want to share). You can drop off food/liquor earlier in the day on your way to the party on the drive – but you should let me know when cause I’ll be heading out at some point to take photos.
Starting: 4:30 or so at my place and going until the night (but not too late, I have to work Monday)
Please RSVP to me so I know how many people to expect to get food for. If the weather is good we’ll be in the backyard.
And here again.
It has been a couple of weeks since I posted anything real here besides the links to photos. Something about being in Ottawa leaves me disinclined towards anything introspective or even analytic. Perhaps it’s that I’m taken up a great deal of the time, whereas my time in Vancouver finds me with at least some small moment of daydreaming when I sit in front of my workaday machine. Which is to say, more simply, that I have more time to slack when I’m at home than when I’m away.
So I am home again as of Saturday night, which found me on a date almost as soon as I arrived. This gave way to Sunday morning when I met Julia and Judah for breakfast on their way to Amsterdam and then to laundry, a nap and 3 phone calls from Darren (yes, he’s fine and he’s back at Inverness if you want to write him). And today of course it’s the office, tomorrow I’ve got to go speak in front of people about bargaining and then meetings and more meetings. Email and more email. Demands and more demands. Plus a lunch date, plus a meeting with an old friend for drinks. And then it’s the weekend again and Anna will arrive for a few days.
My schedule seems ridiculous, I know, but really when my daytimer is full I feel a lot less anxiety about my place in the world. Having days and months scheduled in advance proves on some level that people “need” or “want” me. It’s really a schedule based on insecurity that keeps me the motivated and well-adjusted person I appear to be. (And no, it’s not loneliness I fear, I am rarely lonely – though I’m sure it comes from being an outcast in my youth – it feels so much better to be in than out.)
My new role here starts sometime at the beginning of July, as soon as we negotiate the classification level and I start the hiring process here to backfill some of my work (I’m going to be looking for a bottom-level web person if anyone out there is interested – pay is decent, benefits are good).
Oh yeah, and because July and August are almost like months off (no traveling) I’m enrolling in a French-intensive for at least one of them so I can kickstart my language classes again for the fall – I am feeling the political pressure on me to at least try even though I have little facility for languages. French speakers out there? I’ll be looking to you for help.
Red Cedar 