berrystained

What's the best way to get on your good side?
Submitted by Manon-It-All.

There are a number of established methods, but I can't think of any that especially stand out.  Here's a sampling:

1.  compliment my cooking
2.  show that you're down, politically speaking
3.  get my cat to like you
4.  make a really good Simpsons reference
5.  buy me a rusty nail (the drink, not the actual object)
6.  know how to play one of my favorite songs on the ukelele
7.  listen to me talk about spinning (making yarn on a wheel, not riding an exercise bike) without making fun of me
8.  share your chocolate with me
9.  know who Susan Anway is
10.  have some familiarity with the work of Samuel Delany

I haven't posted anything here in a long while, but I've been reading Lainie's posts and thinking maybe I should try posting here a little more often.  Since I last wrote, I had my first semester of graduate school (difficult but rewarding), started and finished a brief quasi-dating thing, saw lots of shows, baked lots of cakes, continued knitting that one glove I'd been working on for months, etc. etc. etc.  

question of the day:  What albums are in heavy rotation for you right now?

This is kind of a tough question because I've been really getting into using my ipod so I'm not listening to albums all the way through as much as I usually do.  I think I'll probably get back to listening to more things all the way through once the novelty wears off a bit.  So I've been doing a lot of skipping around, but there are still some things I'm listening to a lot so I'll go ahead and list a few of those. 

the Curtains - Calamity

I saw these guys do a gorgeous live set last weekend and since then I've been playing the heck out of their album.  I can see this becoming my new favorite thing. 

Sebadoh - III

The Domino reissue just came out in the US but I've been getting back into this one for a while now.  It's a little inconsistent but mostly great and the best parts are totally amazing.  I've been especially obsessed with Truly Great Thing.

Echo and the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain

I bought this on cd years ago partly because The Killing Moon was on it, then got scared off by how insane the rest of the album is.  I admit it, I'm a philistine.  But recently I've been rediscovering it and I love it.  It's so much weirder and more interesting than people would guess if they've only heard the big hits.

Here are a few individual songs I've been obsessed with lately, too:

Bedhead-Extramundane

Orange Juice - Blue Boy

Buzzcocks - Boredom

the Chills - Rolling Moon

the Yumyums - Gonna Be a Big Thing

Everything But the Girl - Even So

John Lennon - Power to the People

Let's Active - Two You's

the Receptionists - Soren Loved Regina

Mellow Candle - The Poet and the Witch

Once again I am writing about the question of the day.  Well, it just happens that I am bored.

Today the question is whether or not you have any tattoos and if you don't, what you would get if you did get a tattoo. 

I don't have any tattoos, or any piercings for that matter.  I've thought about getting a tattoo at various times and I've had different thoughts on the subject.  My most longstanding tattoo daydream involves getting something from L. Frank Baum's Oz books tattooed on me.  Specifically, either an image of Ozma or something incorporating the symbols of the kingdom (emeralds, poppies, etc.).  I guess my best idea along those lines would be to get something like Ozma's crown, but have it circling my upper arm or something like that.  Her crown is basically a gold circle with the Oz symbol (an O with a Z inside) in the center front, which she wears with poppies at the sides and sometimes ribbons hanging down.  So if I did it as a tattoo design I would probably have the poppies woven through the whole circle without obscuring the symbol.  I don't know about this idea.  In a way I really like it.  The idea of having a tattoo that's an Oz reference appeals to me because the time when I was reading the Baum books was a really magical point in my life, where I had a really rich imagination and felt about as confident and self-possessed as I ever would in my life, but which was followed by a big plunge in my feelings of self-worth when I hit my pre-teens.  It has taken on the air of a sort of feminist shangri-la before gender roles started hemming me in with a vengeance.  So I like what the image means to me.  But in some ways it's a really trite idea for a tattoo.  Not the reference itself, necessarily, but the idea of an upper-arm ring with flowers and stuff like that. 

Another thing about it that bugs me is that it would just be this one super detailed tattoo floating in space.  For years I used to think of images I might like to have as a tattoo without thinking about the big picture.  Like, the literal big picture of how this image would look in the context of my whole body, not just abstractly floating in space.  I don't think I like the idea of having something really complex / big / colorful in one area without balancing it out somehow.  Along these lines, sometimes I think about getting a bunch of tiny tattoos in different spots all over me.  Or just something that would really work with the lines and shapes my body already has in a good composition.  But it's hard to think of something like that and have it actually mean something to you, which makes it less compelling. 

I might get around to getting a tattoo at some point.  But in the meantime I kind of like the idea of being a totally blank canvas with no tattoos or piercings, without being too attached to that state. 

One of these days I am going to do an entry that is not just the question of the day.  In the meantime, well, it's something to post. 

So the question today is if you had a band, what would you call it.  It's frankly kind of embarassing how much thought I have given to this question, though I don't think that means my mental list is particularly good (it just means I'm obsessive). 

So, I always thought if I was in a super-twee pop band we'd be called Skunko and Rabbitteen after my friends B. and A.'s childhood stuffed animals. 

I think Butterscotch Stallion (from a nickname somebody gave Owen Wilson) would be a good band name, but it would have to be for the right thing.  I tried to get my ex-boyfriend to call his band that but he didn't take my advice, and they ended up with a really terrible name everyone hates. 

And my favorite imaginary band name is the title of a Go Team song (the first Go Team, no exclamation point, that Calvin Johnson was in with Tobi Vail):  Milquetoast Brigade.  I just like the sound of it, and the idea of an uprising of shy sensitive types.  If Milquetoast Brigade ever happened there would have to be half-joking revolutionary diatribes on the album sleeves, a la Nation of Ulysses. 

Wallpaper15

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The question of the day today was what's on your desktop.  This is my current background.  I got it at hello yarn. 

So...I'm on Vox now.  Yup.  Don't know yet if I'll end up updating here with any regularity but there are some people I want to keep up with on this thing.