the arcane model

2009-05-11T20:11:00.002-05:00

it's probably long past the point where anyone caring to read this needs the information, but we moved:

americaneyes.tumblr.com

yes, virginia, there is a santa claus

2007-12-15T13:45:00.001-06:00

1. it is BLIZZARDING
2. i get to go to TWO of those special, fancy WILCO shows in february
3. i weathered a bruising "learning experience" at work, and came out the other side with good vibes all around
4. there is a NEW VERLAINES ALBUM.

as to #4, yes, it's finally real. typically . . .unique cover art, but i'm sure it portends typically fantastic music.

happy holidays!

i could give you anything but time

2007-11-17T18:18:00.000-06:00

yep, this about sums it up:

Capricorn (Dec 22- Jan 19)
This can be a stressful day for you that begins with great hopes. Frustration builds if you realize you've promised more than you can deliver. Don't let up; you don't have the luxury of wasting time wallowing in despair. Rest assured that whatever you can accomplish now will be plenty.

(personal to God, re: the pissing rain during my walk to the office. nice touch! it added that perfect little hint of Dickensian bleakness. way to take it there!)

i may be out of it, but i'm still into you

2007-11-12T07:30:00.001-06:00

riding high off of some eleven hours' sleep, we are feeling good (and lazy) enough to attempt some pre-work blogging. so if you are expecting some kind of coherence, i suggest you look elsewhere.

(speaking of work, one of the very first things i did at my new job involved a piece of paper that referenced one "janky technology co., ltd." no, really. i really have nothing to add here.)

first off:

(1) the most addictive website ever, but it's procrastination you can justify. win/win/win. (thanks, kamal.)

(2) andrew bird at daytrotter. how has this not happened before now? predictably amazing stuff, particularly the "kamera"-ed up version of "fiery crash." go, go and get the mp3s while they last!

less time-sensitive:

(1) i finally got to see john vanderslice. for lame, inconsequential reasons, i had not caught his live show before now. if you aren't familiar, JV's songs are very nuanced, but he and his band were so skillful that they were able to adapt the songs in surprising ways to better translate in a rock-club setting. plus his bass/violin player did a ridiculously spot-on michael mcdonald impersonation, which was worth the cost of admission right there. the set was so diverse both in terms of the songs and their presentation (full band, solo, white-stripish duo version of "pale horse".) he/they concluded their set playing a song in the crowd, on the floor of the empty bottle,
encouraging audience members to go on stage in kind, and announcing beforehand that there would be a lil' wayne/UGK dance party to follow. and there was. remarkable show.

(2) a gay guy wastes your time. it's not fully realized, and kind of overstays its welcome, but oh my fucking god is the basic idea so right on. this made me really happy.

(3) "bacon makes cannibalism acceptable." you really don't want to know how many times i've watched this. i blame my current lack of a tv. and my still-burning crush on conan o'brien. (related - still funny. so funny that my mom nearly snorted her chardonnay.)

just plain old:

for sure, the cultural moment for this has passed, but it is so fucking funny that i couldn't not post it. seriously, swift-like levels of satire. not for the easily offended.

finally:

there's a new hollAnd record? no, wait, there were two this year?? i am gobsmacked. kerfluffled even. it was enough to make me get out all my old albums of his, which all hold up pretty excellently. except for the stuff i never put away because it's fucking awesome. yeah, he has a pretentious/artsy side (see band name) but here the focus is on spare, deceptively catchy pop songs. hyper, sexy, and yet a little bit arch. (kind of like yours truly.) both albums are a little more guitary than expected, which surprised me at first. the old-old stuff excepted, i've loved hollAnd most when the casios buzz and whir - synths as guitar substitutes. but no complaints here whatsoever; it wasn't long before i was completely hooked. and FUCK the postal service comparisons, for a variety of reasons. this was a really exciting surprise.

also, happy belated 50th, bob pollard. i know you're kind of a fucked-up dude, and i've only listened to (one of) your new album(s) once in the last few weeks, but you have written far too many of my inspirational jammers for me not to acknowledge the occasion.

anticlimactic

2007-10-10T21:09:00.000-05:00

i went to cvs today. when i got home, i discovered that the gal there put my tampons in a separate paper bag within the plastic one. why? did she think they were going to leak girl-cooties onto the other items? i am seriously baffled by this.

the question is how fast

2007-09-18T23:09:00.000-05:00

basically a cut-and-paste of a recent email, sue me:

two big things to share: one good, one heartbreaking.

today i had my first day of work at my new job. it was good; it felt great. true to form, the morning commute was a clusterfuck/comedy of errors and i very nearly ran late, but the stress was soon forgotten. i mainly just had training/icebreaker stuff today, and lunch with an adviser. it was really good, not, like, some guy with a power point presentation droning on. in keeping with my previous experiences, everyone i dealt with was super-encouraging, down-to-earth, and funny. nothing sugarcoated but no needless psych-outs. it was good to hear, repeatedly, that: i'm not supposed to know anything right now, or for a while, really; i ought to focus on figuring out/actualizing what i want to get out of the job rather than just being a team player; that i shouldn't worry about hours for the rest of the year, and that i should make a point to take all the vacation time i get. i got along well with all the other new hires, and truly, would-have-a-beer-with-them-anyway liked a lot of them. lunch was great and i liked what i heard about the some of the work i may be doing. it's a little weird to suddenly have my own office and support staff (i.e. to be someone's boss)...but it's exciting.

then, the other stuff. as some of you know, my brother suffered a serious head injury a week ago and has been in the hospital ever since. that's the nutshell version; all i can say is it's actually way more complicated. physically, he's recovering well and more rapidly than expected. but he has a very long road ahead of him. it just really kills me, for the obvious reasons, because he's already been dealt more than his share of bad cards in the past, and because things tend to hit him harder emotionally than the rest of my family. though they have responded in a startlingly positive, pragmatic way, it's been really hard on my parents.

...and then, in a few days, there's moving.

hope your lives are more boring right now! seriously.

hey you guys

2007-09-14T01:59:00.000-05:00

if you happen to pray or that sort of thing, could you send some of it in the direction of my family? someone that i'm close to is going through a really, really hard time.

no one uses the phone anymore

2007-09-09T23:09:00.000-05:00

an excerpt from this week's email from marsha:

"Hey...forgot to tell you I love that bed in the Crate and Barrel photos. Watched the brand new season opener of Curb you E tonight...So funny. He and Cheryl adopted a black family from a poor area after a Katrina like storm. Their name is Black...so he said that is so funny...'Like I'm a Jew and my name is Jew!!'"

from furniture catalogs to larry david quotes in 5 seconds. and you wonder where i get it from.

break your own glass ceiling

2007-09-09T10:09:00.000-05:00

Capricorn (Dec 22- Jan 19)

You cannot escape the stress now, for seeking the safety of stable structures is not an option. Things you have relied on in the past could be changing. Everything is different now. Fortunately, once you get past your fear of the unknown, you may find it quite exhilarating. This is a ride that you'll remember for a long time.

perhaps it's corny, but it's reassuring to read something like that when you just sold all your furniture, you're about to start a new job and move to a new place, and half your friends have moved away. whee!

(p.s. if the last entry did not already clue you in, i have decided to try out the well-worn blogging fallback of titling entries with song lyrics. i might as well put all of those verses in my head to SOME use, and maybe you will google your way to some new music that you enjoy. it's...fun?)

i'd stoop to that, sure i would

2007-08-28T13:41:00.000-05:00

so last night, i set out to schuba's to see the band ida. they are a big big big favorite of mine, and they don't tour very often. gorgeous harmonies, hilarious banter, consummate musicians and music fans, radiant people. "the loudest quiet band i know," as one friend put it. being that i am a gyspy right now and had really not been in chicago in over a week, i only found out about the show that afternoon. and being that most of my friends are either unemployed and broke, or employed and busy, everyone i texted was either MIA or couldn't go. which is fine, it was an early show and i was just excited to hang out and hear the music.

i don't know how many of you are familiar with the music of ida. they are not easily pigeonholed, but the majority of their catalog could broadly fall into two categories: couple music, and sad bastard music. an ida concert is thus not a place to hit on chicks, at least not overtly. nevertheless, some poor bastard tried. relentlessly.

i will admit that i opened the door. it was dim, and i am chatty. the lead singer made some funny comment, and i looked over to whoever was next to me and said something like, "there's a kernel of truth to that." intended as acknowledgment/commentary and not macking, but whatever. regardless, this person did not say ANYTHING back, and said nothing at all for probably twenty-five minutes. then all of a sudden i'm getting offered a beer. (yeah, i took it. this is me we're talking about, here. and as the story will show, i earned it. (not that way, parish.))

immediately, this guy is peppering me with questions. i was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for showing some gumption, but at the same time, it's an IDA show and thus meant to be quiet most of the time. and he started gratuitously yapping about his band, and who they've toured with. (give me a FUCKING break. he even talked shit about ted leo!) so when the band started in on one of my favorite songs, i politely interrupted him and whispered, "sorry, i love this song." to which, out of the entire universe of words he could have used (not to mention, SILENCE), he chose to respond with, "you love it? do you wanna marry it?" Swear. To. God. that pretty much sealed his fate right there. what are we, in fourth grade?

mercifully, so mercifully, i spotted a friend of mine near the end of the show and, excusing myself, beelined over there, literally startling him due to my haste and palpable desperation. so in the end, it all worked out. i ditched the mongoloid, finagled a ride, and got home in time for the feist-fest on letterman.
but, lord.

i'd call it a win.

2007-08-27T00:36:00.000-05:00

tonight i saw my perpetual crush object, andrew bird, at my favorite retail outlet, target. swiftly reaffirming the ruling status of both. clearly this proves that we are meant to be together. i mean, besides target, we have so much in common. we both went to northwestern, we both like his music. . .it's like we're the same person! if he bought a wine cube then we are soulmates. this on a day which already involved cookies, vietnamese food, and a massage. life can be good sometimes.

besides that. . .well, i guess there's a lot. exams and their aftermath, a new apartment and mulitple travels. it would be near-unreadable to catch up; i recommend you check the flickr, and maybe your inbox (sprawling emails are far easier to read than sprawling blog posts). the even money says i'll post some shit from youtube, though.

just thought you should know

2007-07-20T00:26:00.000-05:00

the sky right now is amazing. luminous prussian blue with cottony clouds moving so fast and so low that as i stood on the street, the biggest one passed over me like a u.f.o. in the movies. and the stars, wow! they are big, middle of kansas big. seriously, it's like a bierstadt painting come alive, minus the mountains.

i heart chicago

2007-07-14T11:22:00.000-05:00

i just got back from that 5k at the stadium formerly known as comiskey park. i SOOO wish i had brought a camera. it was perfect weather, and the race was objectively good; it was well-organized, i was happy with how i felt, and happy with my time. but mainly, it was just SOOOO cool to finish by sprinting into the actual park, like onto the field. then everybody got free beers and watched a surprisingly galvanized local h (yeah) play for an hour. they were undoubtedly hungover or at least sleep-deprived, and they phoned in part of it but were actually pretty cool and very high-energy. bonus points for doing a hard-charging chicago cover in the middle of their "hit" and also a well-executed version of brit-brit's "toxic." (yeah, i do mean chicago the BAND.) pretty funny dudes, too. surreal and fun and quintessentially chicagoan. i really hate that i have to go study now.

there is a shortage in the blood supply, there is no shortage of blood

2007-07-13T11:49:00.000-05:00

it's ok. we are back. last couple weeks = low-level smoking habit, ipod trained exclusively on the mountain goats and ida. (i.e., Sad Bastard Music. specifically and especially Tallahassee, unsurprising as this stupid exam has made my brain as dysfunctional as the Alpha Couple.) but we can see the light at the end of the the tunnel. running our 5ks, doing our practice tests, looking ahead to the august we can enjoy, after we kill the bar dead and get drunk for several days. books, travel, friends, sleep--small miracles.

i'm not going crazy, just tired. and tired of seeing the negative effects this professional hazing ritual is having on my good friends.

things i think about in my cubicle:

1. new spoon album = characteristically consistent, an excellent soundtrack to the summer i'm not having. at this point now, they've honed their sound so much that they almost quote themselves. for better ("finer feelings" = wiser, looser, happier "me and the bean"), and for worse ("rhthm and soul" = poor man's "monsieur valentine.") jim eno deserves some kind of medal or something, though. my mind is also blown by the fact that the dude laying down those smoove bass lines was in the mothereffing get up kids. still wrapping my head around that nugget of information.

2. new stars album = i want to like it so much more, especially since this was totally classy and incredibly shrewd. i mean, i knew it wasn't going to match "set yourself on fire", an album i will unreservedly rank as one of the best of the last ten years. this one = too much of what i didn't like about "heart" and no "elevator love letter" to redeem it. it's mainly the piano ballands and the synths--employed more for 80s cheeze than modern atmospherics. and some good stuff to be sure. dude is pulling a full-on morrissey impersonation on a few tracks and it's actually a good look. but overall a little weaker than i expected.

3. target, killing it with their cute sundresses. the photo does NOT do justice. the pinks are pinker and the grey is really a robins-egg blue. i look forward to wearing this when i have a social life again.

4. i am a bad hipster, i haven't listened to lil' wayne, though i respect his constant repping for NOLA. but i saw an interview in which he kept referring to his peers and mentors as "ninjas." this is brilliant for two reasons: (1) it avoids the connotations and controversy of the "n-word" while still evoking it. (2) ninjas are inherently awesome.

5., but should be 1.....new pornos and MY FAVORITE FEMALE VOICE EVER. you know, i think i might go see that.

6. getting legitimately excited about my job, for a variety of reasons.

7. getting legitimately excited about the new caribou record. what i've heard is pretty, intricate and blissed out as ever. merge now = matador 15 years ago? probably better, in terms of both constistency and sheer diversity.

8. where should i move?

9. what should i do in san franciso when i'm there? (bonus points if your suggestion involves food.)

10. i need to study.

amazing

2007-07-02T23:50:00.000-05:00

monica eng, you are my hero.

things and stuff

2007-06-26T12:14:00.000-05:00

this looks like it may have been kind of awesome. (lzp, can you confirm or deny?) no complaints, though. one of the kansas city julies was in town yesterday and we actually had a really good talk. p.s. the drinks here are AMAZING, 'cause i'm a yuppie like that. p.p.s. i got a 58 percent on my practice multistate bar exam! no, seriously. that's actually a GOOD score. and you wonder why this fucks with my head?

grievances

2007-06-24T23:54:00.000-05:00

dear cta,

next year can you, like, not pick the day of the us v. mexico soccer final, cubs/sox game, and gay pride parade to work on the tracks? k thx.

xoxo

c

-------

dear mayor daley,

i know we are a diverse city. and i guess that includes people who listen to boney james. but was it really necessary to host a THREE-DAY "smooth jazz" festival, like, six feet from my school? couldn't you have conjured a bullshit permit violation like you do for your opponents' fundraisers? you studied for the bar once, too.

your pal,

claire

ALSO

2007-06-21T11:11:00.000-05:00

oh p.s., while i am still playing hooky from outlining secured transactions essays:

jennifer o'connor* is having a big summer sale! her latest album is still, months and months later, one of my absolute faves, and frankly, i can't think of anybody i know who wouldn't find something to love there. understated and affecting. RIYL, i don't know, elliott smith, "girls can tell"-era spoon, tom petty, ida.

(* no relation, not paying me)

i'll write about something other than music or bar exams again sometime, i'm sure.

survive and advance

2007-06-21T00:31:00.000-05:00

i try not to be into nostalgia for nostalgia's sake (which is difficult to avoid lately) but WOW. if you had asked me, "claire, what would it take to rejuvenate you if you were four weeks into studying for the bar and four days into four hours' sleep?" OR alternatively, "claire, what would theoretically be the AWESOMEST superchunk set you could see?" i would direct you to this evening. while, on balance, i'm as much or more a portastatic fan these days, there is no denying the melody and propulsiveness--and generosity--of superchunk at their best. and they were, and they killed it, nailing every nuance of every ripping solo. stef and i were particularly happy to see my personal favorite record "foolish" get some love, BESIDES "driveway to driveway." i pogoed multiple times, until i thought better of it, and/or got a sideache. headbanging is just as cathartic anyway. and it's easier to text simultaneously.

also also there were the mountain goats. this time, there were no hugs, and it was more somber new songs/deep cuts than old "hits", but there was jon wurster on drums (weird/cool; it lent "this year" a "classic indie rock" feel, if i can adopt the term without sounding douchey). even still, i think the metro is a little cavernous for them but with some emotion and ingenuity they came through.

more to the point. i knew that that it was a cancer-awareness related benefit, and i knew it was directed towards the efforts of a particular fan/fighter, but i really didn't know the whole story. some of the family elaborated and it was both heartbreaking. and inspiring. (p.s. they played all three of those songs.)

on a related note, yet firmly in the 21st century (it's nice here!) it looks like SCRAWL is back together. this makes me extremely happy. it would be simplistic to characterize them by their gender (as the "foxcore, my ass" tour made clear)--their harrowing, ass-kicking songs address emotions and dysfunctions readily identifiable to anyone with a pulse and they rock really, really hard. yet it's hard not to ascribe a uniquely feminine perspective to the scope and emotional heft of their songwriting, more weary confessional than romanticized self-loathing. "your mother wants to know" is starker than a country song, and one of very few songs i can think of outside of that genre to really, candidly address--in the PRESENT tense--the unspoken fissures that can exist in the relationship between a parent and adult child. self-doubt and dependency, anger, passion and liberation, it's all there. the world kind of needs them right now. or at least i do.

what else? my brain is oatmeal from all this law stuff. OH: at dinner tonight, i looked up at the baseball game on the television behind us to discover that there is for reals a player named "COCO CRISP." i would not lie to you about something like that.

all i want is one more chance, to be young and wild and free

2007-05-24T23:14:00.001-05:00

man. this sucks. sucks and blows. i always thought the students ahead of me were being melodramatic when they talked about studying for the bar, but perhaps not. i'm on day two of studying for this thing, and you know how i was telling everyone i wanted to treat it "like a 9-to-5"? um, try 9-to-9. i'm not going crazy and trying to do every little thing (and unlike a lot of my friends, i'm only taking one class instead of two), but even trying to be "reasonable" it's just very time-consuming. i mean, i have to learn 24 subjects in 7 or 8 weeks, maybe 3/4 of which i've previously taken a class on. i just did a practice test, on the one subject i've been studying for the last couple of days, and and i got 5 out of 17 right. that's not even 30%, holmes. to put it in some perspective, though, that's only a couple questions worse than my friends who have been doing said second class this spring.

shockingly, i really haven't been procrastinating, either! i have so many damn books to carry that i leave my laptop at home. i guess that's good though. it's kind of liberating to be forcibly removed from the internet and its sometimes shallow diversions. and i take some consolation in the fact that most of my friends are in the same suffocating little boat. i mean, my first-year BFF rachael, we've tried and failed to make plans since her graduation party--8 months ago--and i've now seen her twice in two days. sad commentary, eh?

i'll stop bitching now. it's just harsh because i've had a pretty good run of things. i had a fabulous time in dc, and then it was 4 days of being the center of attention, dressing up, eating steak every day, getting drunk every night. intense bro-down session with the brother, rewarding catch-ups with extended family. i uploaded approximately 9 billion photos this week so you can check it out for yourself. but yeah. you know that scene in almost famous? where the kid gets back from tour, beelines to his bed, and promptly passes out, backpack and all? that's pretty much what happened to me on monday after my parents dropped me off. i didn't even eat anything until, like, two in the afternoon, because i took a 4-hour nap. and i usually have, like, two lunches by eleven. still got up and got going to send off loren and ben, though. i miss those two already but i'm excited for their future. i should have talked about that instead of practice test percentages, shouldn't i?

because i said so

2007-05-10T09:14:00.000-05:00

erica's comment reminded me that i have not mentioned how unsurprisingly awesome the new sea and cake album is. i have really been feeling one bedroom again lately, but this one's a departure in a good way. more stripped down; i hesitate to say that it's more "rocking", but there's even some actual guitar hooks again. all smoove, no snooze. the perfect soundtrack to early summer (i mean, there's even a song called "coconut"). it makes me want to drink a mojito, and i don't even like mojitos.

the new mary timony on the other hand. . .love that woman, and she is obviously one of the greatest living guitarists, but i'm really not feeling this one all the way. even the four-minute songs feel like they are seven. . . i would instead suggest either or both charlotte hatherley albums. it's like if ms. timony fronted a punked-up girl group. similarly unconventional tunings and inventive guitar work, but in a pop song context.

p.s. there may be trouble a-brewing at emusic, aka the reason why i've even listened to both these albums already. say it ain't so! it doesn't excuse underpaying any artists, if that's happening, but i would agree w/ mr. CEO that itunes = song buyers, emusic = album buyers. hopefully it can get sorted.

can you believe i got to school at 8:40 a.m. today? me neither. can you believe that i haven't started working yet? me too.

half-dozen

2007-05-07T18:18:00.000-05:00

1. yesterday--long run, thinking hard about the people of greensburg, kansas. i've never been there, but i've passed through many towns like it. block after block, the question i couldn't shake: how do you rebuild a town that was probably already dying?
still, of course, people need help now even if that question can't yet be answered.

2. interesting barack article in the new yorker. the author kind of sucks, and the article focuses as much or more on his skills as a candidate as his potential to be an actual public servant, but i would still call it a must-read. there's still a lot more i need to know about obama, but this gave some insight as to where he may be coming from.

3. i'm not afraid to say this made me cry, even though it's not at all the first such story i've heard. all you people who prefer cats, i will just never fucking understand. i would have to take some seriously mind-altering drugs to even be able to imagine, hypothetically, a cat acting selfless. (sorry, various friends i've offended.)

4. bill clinton crossword.

5. yet another person agrees with me that grey's anatomy (and its progeny) sucks. the author's argument is a tad shrill/second wave but i generally agree. trust me, it can be difficult to be a woman in a high-pressure, traditionally male profession, and lord knows "confused and self-doubting" describes my personal life more often than not, AND i am obvs all for escapist entertainment (boston legal, and lately, mtv cribs), but when you turn on the tv and see a female professional barge in on a fucking surgery to confront someone about some sort of imagined relationship drama? worst. bonus points for the linkage to ally mcbeal, which disturbed me for the same reasons. she is too kind to sex and the city, though.

6. my love for dunkin donuts coffee is still fierce and bostonian. no coffee of any sort has passed my lips in at least six weeks, but this week, i can't help it. it's just the only appropriate beverage for finals.

freak scene

2007-05-03T22:56:00.000-05:00

my apartment is really not the place to be right now. no one here is in a good mood. my roommate is sad because she has a mystery knee injury which has majorly effed up her compulsive running habit, her boyfriend is sad because he's a 1L, and i've just felt jittery and weird for the last 2 or 3 hours. and we're all bummed about finals. howevs, my anxiety is not even about my exam, more the half-dozen urgent things on my mind besides said exam, and all the changes happening in my life generally, buzzing around in my brain at an inopportune time. and probably too much caffeine. seriously, someone pass the klonopin.

although this makes me feel a little better. WOW.

and that said, most of the last several days, at least after saying sayonara to the BUP and turning in my paper, have been pretty laid back, considering. running and sleeping and drinking and laughing and seeing a breathtakingly cathartic ted leo show. and, uh, studying.

p.s. chicago-area readers. i was studying at the loop barnes and noble today and they had several copies of this, in hardback, for, like, seven dollars! do yourselves a favor.

nahmean?

2007-05-01T18:19:00.000-05:00

am watching The NewsHour and attempting to study, pre ill-advised dollar-burgers sesh with my soon-to-be-ex-law school bff/recent running partner/perpetual life coach loren, and cotey/dustin/brian. lehrer is interviewing sens. patty murray and kay bailey hutchinson--AKA TWO LADIES--about the president's veto of the iraq spending bill. it is serious, it is rigorous, and JL is not asking patronizing questions or softballs (of course). somehow it feels almost revolutionary. i mean, i'm still pleasantly surprised when i see more than the token amount of female commentators, let alone actual (non-pelosi) elected legislators.

i LOVE you, big black lady with sleep apnea!

2007-04-24T09:30:00.000-05:00

somehow, this came up in conversation yesterday and i was compelled to google the actual article--has it really been five years? travis morrison kind of dove into the deep end of quirk these last few years, but this reminds that the d-plan at their best were so humane, funny and irreverent. but regardless about whether you care about some old rock band (it's probably better if you don't), you should READ THIS. not all of it. scroll down to the mid-section. totally hilarious with a very wise conclusion.

the take-away show

2007-04-24T09:22:00.000-05:00

oui, oui!

soulful birds and soulless hacks

2007-04-23T01:06:00.000-05:00

parish and i saw andrew bird on friday. despite a bad hair day and awkward scarf, the wilsonian hotness was still intact. to be honest, his new one was a grower for me as compared to the mysterious production of eggs, and while he's a favorite, i don't keep all of his songs in heavy rotation. but live, though, the sound he makes is just overwhelmingly gorgeous, especially with the increased production values and augmented lineup that he now rocks. parish was won over by the line, "we'll get back at them all with epoxy and a pair of pliers," and really, can you blame him?

we were both a little non-plussed by the opener, apostle of hustle. the guy is talented, and i like certain of his songs, but he veered a little too far into patchouliville on this particular night. also a lot of lead-guitarist-sexface going on. hopefully none of this will influence the next broken social scene album. also, i think i may have inadvertently convinced one of my classmates that i'm a bigot. AWESOME.

anyway, it is worth noting that mr. bird stated that while he is not playing any summer festivals this year, he is HEADLINING THE HIDEOUT FEST. AT THE HIDEOUT. JAM OF THE YEAR? possibly. and i won't be working yet, so yeah. speaking of, these people clearly aren't on to me yet. on friday they sent me a finals care package (!?) of gourmet popcorn and cookies. um, you had me at "we'd like to offer you a position."

on a complete other note, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. be sure to click on all the links, especially the "UPDATE: MORE". feel free to send this chick a vitriolic email on my behalf. she deserves it.

back to pop music.

2007-04-08T02:26:00.000-05:00

p.s. i agree with this post all the way. ALL the way. if you are my myspace internet quasi-friend you will know that i dig this rihanna song. weird, because i had zero time for her before. but i am a sucker for blown-out fuzz bass, whether it's produced by robert schnieder or "c.tricky stewart." yeah, jay-z is on this track but i like it more in spite of than because. even though my expectations for hova are low at this point, it's superfluous, and aggravating: like, really, why the fuck is he on this? it's like he's eager to add grist to the rumor mill as long as def jam's PPS goes up. and dude is right about the "post-rock" thing...i mean, i remember a few years ago, when it seemed like every show i went to, someone was covering that kylie song: cursive, the flaming lips, you name it. which was fun, and sort of justified. but this song actually DOES sort of have that epic sweep that would lend itself well to heavier, guitar-centric artists. anyway, i likewise agree that the new amerie song is pretty decent too. so it's pretty darn similar to "one thing.' and also the horn riff from "hold on, i'm a comin'." but exactly how and why would that be a bad thing? and yeah, i even agree about the amy winehouse. i actually didn't hear the song until fairly recently, but i too am not immune to the charms of "rehab." even though i have to take a shower after even looking at that chick.

poster of a girl

2007-04-08T02:05:00.000-05:00

today was not the greatest. one of those days where you feel both restless and sullen, that feels wasted even though you technically got things done. then you receive a photo like this and you feel a little bit better:

red wine, russell stover easter eggs, and multiple episodes of 'arrested development' also help out.

(p.s. that would be sadie grey murphy, the newest addition to the family of my cousin thomas and his wife julie, aka jack and lulu. and s & g are both family names, actually.)

humbling.

2007-04-06T00:52:00.000-05:00

so i just got home from my regular thursday night drinking sesh to discover that i'd received a hand-written note from ben and char dykema, the wonderfully midwestern, retired couple that spearheaded the volunteer efforts in which i took part in new orleans in march (from the christian reformed world relief committee, if we're being exact, but whatevs. . . it was secular and i am down with the G-O-D if we're keeping track anyway). fuck, man. i can't even be bothered to put my laundry away.

eff a motion in limine, for reals.

2007-04-04T00:55:00.000-05:00

um, holy shit. this happened, like, half a mile from my school.

still, i think i'm less scared of coyotes than i am the chicago police department right now.

on a happier note, jess has an interview next week for a job at GOOGLE! although they must get 999,999 resumes a week, i can't say that i'm surprised.

"it's obnoxiously great to be me week" continues

2007-03-31T17:45:00.000-05:00

dudes. you know who you are. the flowers--so awesome. i will call or write you all personally tomorrow. right now i have to go eat korean bbq. (!!!!!)

and not forgetting the voice

2007-03-30T02:02:00.000-05:00

i should have known better than to wear mascara to a neko case show. it goes without saying at this point, but she is epic. especially at park west, her voice just soared. and backed up by kelly hogan and nora o'connor (tied with jennifer for o'connors i wish i was related to), it was like the triumvirate of chicago-based sirens. trust me, that she made me cry is not at all as surprising as when...certain songs that reduced me to tears the first time i heard them ("star witness", "margaret vs. pauline") sounded surprisingly upbeat live, while "set out running," which initially struck me as well-crafted country pastiche, absolutely killed me. and then were there the songs that always had that effect, like "i wish i was the moon." and then, even though she gave us fair warning that it was "a sad one" there was "in california" (which some googling told me was written by her previous bandmate lisa marr) that turned my eyes from watery to flooded. (check the lyrics and tell me i'm wrong.) which is not at all incompatible with saying that i had the absolute best time. plus she and her ladies are just the funniest, even sans rachael flotard. and songs i previously wrote off, like "favorite," floored me. and in the hands of her capable band and my admirably silent fellow concertgoers, "dirty knife" was absolutely cinematic. the scary thing is, the shows tonight and tomorrow are probably going to be even better.

it was a good day.

2007-03-30T01:33:00.000-05:00

have you ever had one of those days where you wake up and you're not rested and you're behind on your work and you're kind of cranky and you just sort of roll with it and you then score a second date with the cute architect and you then get a voicemail from the big firm that you talked to and you later find out that you got a job from the big firm and you then send some gratuitous emails and you then hear some pretty great things from close friends and also from people you thought might not notice at all and you then get a pretty incredible email from your father and you then get an even more incredible email from someone at the big firm and you then take a really, truly, horrible test but you go out after with your thursday night buddies and law school best friend and the horrible bar you usually go to is not that bad and the horrible waitress is replaced with someone really nice and the horrible dude that usually talks to you keeps to his friends and they play your favorite daft punk song and the train comes soon enough and you come home to find that even more people you thought might not notice did and your brother wrote something that makes you cry so you write something even more gratuitous on your goddamned blog? me too, before now. it's pretty heady, not gonna lie.

if there's been a way to build it. . .

2007-03-21T22:13:00.000-05:00

what a LONG day. i left the house at 8:30 and got in about 20 minutes ago. today felt infinitely more like a monday than monday actually did. thank god i have leftovers that i actually want to eat. (that i cooked, even! it happens sometimes.) i have a feeling that i missed some sort of graduation-related deadline. whatevs, i'm not even trying to find out until i finish this glass of wine.

p.s. guess who has a date with a cute architect this weekend?

for someone who hasn't finished a book in months, i can sound pretty pretentious

2007-03-21T00:59:00.000-05:00

so much to say, so little motivation to say it...i've been doing a lot of living lately, and my focus is elsewhere as i try to sort through all my obligations: little things, big things, little parts of big things, little things with big impact and vice versa. NOLA pictures are up on flickr, though they give no indication of the amazing people i met down there. hardworking, earnest, generous people who are trying to move forward from almost incomprehensible upheaval and turmoil, and with very little assistance from anyone. i have to write something for the school about the work i did; maybe i'll copy that here whenever that gets done.

the anti-war march today ended up being inspiring. i went down with people from my school, who were serving as legal observers for the nlg. i spaced on the training for that, so i just went down to march and help them out. the pre-march rally mostly annoyed me, frankly. it was primarily populated by career protesters, shrill and irrelevant ists (social-, neo-lenin-, etc., whatevs), apple-cheeked 19 year-olds shouting about the people's revolution, nutjobs in costumes. notable exception: the kid from iraq veterans against the war. jesus christ. and kathy kelly, who changed the name of her group now that the violence in iraq is more than economic. she brought up the plight of the many refugees of the war, which i'm ashamed to admit i haven't considered very much either.

the actual march, however, was a different story. and the fact that it was actually, finally on michigan again (no small victory, symbolic or otherwise, after the giant civil rights violation that was 4 years ago), made it feel like some sort of impact may have been made, for once. ugg-booted mothers and daughters, art-damaged college kids, church folks, old-timers and everyone in between (people of color, even! i sound snarky, and yes, that is a commentary on the (often-understandable) (non)appeal of liberal activism to minorities, but also on the super-scary presence of the chicago p.d., to be explained shortly) all marching down FUCKING MICHIGAN AVENUE at dinnertime. to a man, every cab driver honked in support. and you know, the cops were alright, as i have mostly found to be the case at these things. they joked with us, and each other, we joked with them and ourselves. they're on overtime, they're doing what they have to do. but the riot cops, of which there had to be two or three hundred, were just plain unnerving. not their conduct, which was totally hands-off, but the sheer presence, for blocks and blocks. the masks obscuring their faces, the big wooden canes. you don't see that in new york, even. i can't think of any recent march i've attended or been in the vicinity of that wasn't the same way (last year this time, the immigration rally)--or rather, any march since 4 years ago. it's an obvious message. daley doesn't like surprises. period. i'm glad i went. it's sick that this war has gone on so long that i can compare and contrast ANNUAL marches. it's sick that it ever began. i finally read the seymour hersh article from three new yorkers ago and it made me fired up. and sad. and really, really confused.

on another note, and apropos of nothing, ted leo and i have the same favorite stereolab song! i only listen to that album maybe once a year, if that, but i have that song in my head at least once a week. probably because something in my life feels out of control at least once a week. soothing and fortifying. in the context of the album as a whole, i guess it sounds like pop neo-marxism, but independent of that, the lyric is just, like, the best advice ever.

related to that: i was so busy crushing on andrew bird that i forgot dude's album came out today too! it was a pleasant surprise.

ok, i'm going to go try and fight the good fight against stress-induced insomnia now. laters.

typical

2007-03-09T01:27:00.001-06:00

i'm sorry, i really hate to make this blog very law school-y, and i know the last couple entries totally were, but. . .man, i kind of screwed myself. i'm not really sure where today (before 6 p.m. class) went, other than ipod maintenance, nail painting, trying to get one of the neanderthals at IBABY on the phone, and running. i definitely didn't work much on my complaint which is due saturday a.m. but anyone who reads this, or who has known me for any period of time, well knows my self-sabotaging tendencies re: writing deadlines. and i guess i just kind of knew in my bones that i would be going out after class...my girl loren is one of my Top Best Friends Ever, and she's outta here in, like, a month and a half, so, carpe diem. i guess i didn't realize "a beer" would turn into such a long night. even knowing us. and i'm kind of underestimating how much stuff i have to do before NOLA. but it'll work itself out, though, right?

p.s. seems like lots of people lately have told me, in a roundabout, belated, way, that they read this thing. WELL YOU SHOULD COMMENT, THEN! i say this because i am superficial, but also, i want to know what you think and HOW YOU ARE DOING. ok? thx.

4 lists.

2007-03-07T21:47:00.001-06:00

things i did today:
1. go to work.
2. attend a meeting for the new orleans trip.
3. present at a meeting for the new orleans trip.
4. make up a 90-minute exam for one of my classes.
5. go to class 1.
6. go to class 2.
7. take a 45-minute deposition at class 2.
8. learn that j. nicholas parish once punched a cow at the wisconsin state fair.
9. realize that i am not surprised by number 8.

bands/records i have been feeling again lately:
1. broadcast.
2. crooked fingers.
3. the dismemberment plan, "emergency and i." (before the reunion was announced, actually.)
4. pelican.
5. juliana hatfield, "made in china." (don't hate. maybe a few of the lyrics are ham-fisted, but this album rocks. kind of like what sleater-kinney may have been aiming for with "the woods," but with actual songs and less blooze.)
5. the verlaines. (of course.) (p.s. they are recording a new album! this is a great thing. you just don't know it. finding out about stuff like this is why, no matter how annoying and pervy and corporate myspace becomes, i cannot disavow it completely.)

places i ate hot dogs last saturday:
1. vienna beef hot dog factory.
2. jimmy's red hots.
3. gene and jude's.
4. superdawg.
5. wolfy's.
6. u lucky dawg.
7. byron's.*

cool things on the internet:
1. this. (courtesy of s/fj.)
2. and this.

* (a bite.)

wow.

2007-03-02T23:12:00.000-06:00

i am so incredibly behind. on school stuff, work projects, everything. i meant to do stuff tonight, but ended up online window-shopping for dresses in a half-coma. but whatever. it's been eventful. best-friend visits and six-figure job interviews don't happen all that often, let alone in one week.

despite everything else going on, it was so great to have jess in town. as ever, she validates my opinions and ideas but also grounds me so much. laughter all around. it's funny how some things (for us, walking to white hen and watching conan) never change.

and the mega-interview was actually not that bad. i was a little stiff with the first guy, but became much more comfortable and really enjoyed talking to everyone i met. i met with three partners, then one associate; the last "interview" was just a very informal lunch with two more. if i actually got this job, it would be such a change..but i've been wanting one. i often do well when something unexpected just comes at me, like this certainly has, because i'm not always the best about seeking change out for myself and it keeps things interesting. i think i need my world shaken up a bit right now and certainly want more of a challenge.

and, well, yeah, the money. holy wu tang jesus, you can't ignore the money. the hours would be long, really long at times; it's almost too obvious to mention. but the kids i had lunch with (who were nice and funny and pretty cool) were able to actually use all their vacation time...and do some pretty awesome things with it. in contrast with, oh, pretty much every year since college, when i've worked a ton and still couldn't afford to travel anywhere. and most of my other issues with the big firm experience are specific to litigation, as opposed to the stuff i would be doing with this job. the female partner i met with seemed a lot like me, in some surprising ways. and she is on top of her game, in an area of the law where there are still very few female partners. we had such a candid conversation, which was extremely affirming and encouraging. so who knows? maybe i'll wind up in the last place i thought i'd ever be. can't say it'd be the first time.

i have one other story which deserves its own post but it'll have to wait. i have a hot dog tour to rest up for!

prescient horoscope

2007-03-01T08:05:00.000-06:00

i have to interview with seven people in two hours. i just had to dial up the wikipedia for "private equity" to make sure i even know what those seven people will be saying to me. so i had to laugh at this:

"Capricorn: There is much to be learned from conflict and trial -- after all, high pressure is what creates diamonds, right? It might not please you to know that the next twenty-four hours may be a bit stressful, but after this day is over, you will be a better person. Not every day can be a breeze, and going through a rough patch will make you all the more appreciative when you encounter smooth sailing again -- and this will happen much sooner than you think."

the ice storm

2007-02-24T23:11:00.000-06:00

i'm over it now, but this evening has been a real bummer. i lost my wallet AGAIN. it's fine, no cash was in there, and almost everything else can be replaced and has been cancelled. almost. i won't whine about the details, but it's a minor misfortune. i never learn. i'm only capable of being a responsible adult for maybe six hours of every day, tops.

and then there is the weather. NOT ZESTY. i love snow. i hate ice storms. the tv is currently advising that there is a "winter storm warning," a "blizzard warning," AND a "flood warning" all happening in the vicinity right now. what the fuck?

and then my itunes had a bit of a meltdown. which should not be important to me, but so totally is.

and then there's this. god help us all. (courtesy of goldenfiddle)

at least jess, my nearest and dearest, is in town. i fear that due to travel delays, my work, her work, and this stupid weather, i won't see her as much as i would like, but we've already gotten some eating and laughing in, and i'm not worried. but i was just so, like, lethargic and cranky for a couple of hours tonight. there's just a lot going on right now and i think the seams are starting to show.

you know what made me feel better? the arcade fire. i don't care if it sounds cheezy. i looked up and i saw them on the tv and i was transfixed. i didn't even feel bad about all the times i've missed seeing them for real. and i don't really have all that much allegiance to their first album, as accomplished and special as it was. but they were just so..passionate. not new-emo dramatics but real fervor. like everything could break down at any second. like neutral milk hotel.

you know what also makes me feel better? thinking about yesterday. i went running and i went further south and east than usual, which caused me to see homes and restaurants and schools that i hadn't before. part of why i went further south and east was to cut across on milwaukee at the end, which is when i came upon 826chi, the chicago outpost of dave eggers' young-person mind-expansion/confidence-building enterprise. right in-between stop smiling HQ and neighborhood housing services, where i worked last fall. i guess it just opened, and i didn't even know it was there. SOOO cute. i have only been to the nyc location, and like that one, 826chi is configured as a "secret agent supply store." (i.e. "the boring store. i.e. "not a secret agent supply store." GAAAH!) maybe it was the endorphins talking, but reading about all of the inventive and inclusive tutorials and presentations and sessions they've got going on, i started crying. i seriously did. it's just such an ambitious, hopeful undertaking. and i'm just another asshole with a law degree. to that point, the only reason why i even went down milwaukee in the first place was to check out the american apparel store, which, for a variety of reasons, is not what i need to be caring about.

anyway, various friends, thanks for your well-wishes over the past couple of days. re: the wallet-losing and also the big, confusing job interview i have next week. YOU ARE THE BEST.

breaking news.

2007-02-14T17:26:00.000-06:00

WOW. i was checking voicemail after class and discovered that i had a call from this firm, from somebody who got my resume from this guy. who i've never spoken to in my life. the networking gods must be smiling on me. i'm really, really confused. but if my hunch is correct, i'm naming my first child kevin hull [last name here]. even if it's a girl.

i'm glad that we're friends.

2007-02-14T10:31:00.000-06:00

wow, this snow is AMAZING! such big, gentle flakes. yesterday, the wind was harsh, but today, it's magical. i actually get to work out of a real "office" today since i forgot to bring my laptop charger, but i keep finding excuses to go look out the window.

also magical: the carnitas tacos at caminos de michoacan #2 (aka the joint by sheridan el). i hadn't been there since the Infamous July Third Lockout of '04, and i had no idea...i stopped in there on saturday night, to fortify myself for the journey home, and it was easily some of the best mexican food i've ever had. the carnitas were plump and tender, served with onions and lime and some sort of guacamole/salsa verde hybrid. holy mother of god. i wasn't drunk, either, so word is bond. (side note: in my quest to verify the name of the restaurant the next day, i stumbled upon this. WHOA. if it didn't exist, i would've had to invent it.)

that doesn't even scratch the surface of what was a very, very busy couple of weeks, and one in which i had to be "on" a lot of the time...but it's what's most important to me right now. clearly work isn't, so i'd better sign off.

3 thoughts on the cold + 1 quote on the thermals

2007-02-06T00:18:00.000-06:00

1. man, there is cold and then there is right now. walking home from white hen, which is pretty much the same thing as walking home from the train, which is to say, not very far, my hands--in their gloves--actually became sort of numb. i mean, i have worse circulation than your nana's nana, but somehow i don't think that was the primary contributing factor today. makes me doubly thankful for my comfortable, centrally-heated apartment, and doubly worried about those without. say some extra prayers for the homeless, if you do that sort of thing. i know i will be.

2. on a less-serious note, i'm pretty sure i engaged in a similar rant about this time last year, or maybe the last couple of years, but seriously: WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH HIPSTER DOUCHEBAGS AND THEIR IRRATIONAL REFUSAL TO WEAR COATS, EVER? i was waiting for the bus this morning with this dude who was wearing this thin narrow jacket and no gloves whatsoever. i watched him fidget with his ipod*, trying to look nonchalant as he clenched in the face of the wind. i wanted to shake him and shout, "hey fucktard! this isn't quadrophenia, it's chicago. and it's three degrees out." meanwhile, i'm toasty in the columbia ski jacket i got at, like, jc penney's five years ago, that i was decidedly not too proud to wear. not that i haven't been known to place fashion ahead of function, even very recently, but today was just beyond the beyond and i can't imagine why anyone would voluntarily choose to wear any fewer than as many layers as they could stand.

3. the other side of the coin, straight-classic chicagoan sang-froid in the face of cold/heart disease/political correctness: the other night when i was running on western, when it was merely eight-ish degrees out, some dude passed me on a bicycle, smoking.

speaking of straight-classic:

Having mastered power trio pop-punk, they speed-read the bible, noting what's fucked and what isn't, why that is and why they give a shit. Spending more time than usual on the words, Hutch Harris abstracts them enough to avoid harangue but not so much that you miss the gist. I'm glad they've chosen thematic ambition over the musical kind, which would have defeated the point of mastering power trio pop-punk in the first place.

finally someone got it right and figured out how to encapsulate the unlikely genius of that great, great record. finally someone did it without stumbling around the "concept album" trope, which is not only inaccurate, but belies how much the album fucking rocks.

god. i feel like every night i have to study corporations is such a waste, because it takes me so damn long, because it's so, so boring. i actually really LIKE payment systems, which objectively sounds worse. (maybe? i guess they both sound pretty bad.) but seriously, i would rather be force-fed glass by paris hilton than read ten pages of this stuff. i will try and make this my last rant about that class, but i'm not promising anything.

* (not mockery, merely illustrative detail. you know i'd have mine, like, surgically implanted if i could.)

breathtaking.

2007-02-04T16:08:00.000-06:00

this whole post is interesting, and relevant, if very sprawling, but really the only thing you need to read is the first few paragraphs. strike that, really the only thing you need to read is this:

"Didion frames it all another graph on, perceiving 'not just a vulgarity of diction' but:

When someone speaks...of the 'freedom fighter uniforms' in which the 'communist operatives'... disguise themselves, that person is not arguing a case, but counting instead on the willingness of the listener to enter what Hannah Arendt called, in a discussion of propaganda, 'the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world.'"

remind you of any presidents you know?

this weekend has been fun, equal parts crazy and lazy. i have not managed my time entirely well given how busy the next week or ten days is shaping up to be (I WOKE UP AT 12:30 TODAY), but i think i knew that the leisureliness of this weekend was a foregone conclusion. and when you're being leisurely, you might as well fucking commit to it, or you're only going to be even more stressed out afterwards.

the sweat descends

2007-02-03T10:27:00.000-06:00

so last night i went running. at, like, seven o'clock. the sign at the bank at chicago and ashland said 8 degrees, the ukranian credit union -10 C, 11 at roberto clemente high. but you know, it actually felt good. really good. the full moon was amazing and i was dressed appropriately. winter running is all about the 2 Ls: layering and les savy fav. although, objectively, it would have made sense to go on thursday, when it was relatively warm, when i did nothing except work on my pretrial practice assignment. and eat several bowls of cereal. and watch ween videos on youtube, until my six o'clock class. i chalk it up to fluctuating hormones, and the knowledge that i would probably be drunk for the better part of the subsequent 48 hours. a prediction which seems to be bearing itself out. yay for preemptive healthiness, birthdays, and super bowls.

threat-level yellow sunshine

2007-01-31T00:40:00.000-06:00

ach. late-night television today (in which i am indulging unrepentantly--it has been a long day, and tomorrow will likely be longer. which sort of begs the question of why i am not sleeping right now, but whatevs.) has hit my nerd-comedian button. first bob saget, and now patton oswalt. i am now confident enough as a woman to admit that i have always sort of had a crush on that guy, even though he sort of looks like a troll with special needs. sort of. while he is such a sci-fi nerd, he is also extremely literate and bullshit-intolerant and it gets me sometimes. can't lie to you.

anyway:

1. today, while lunching on salmon and field greens, i saw this woman speak about this book at the union league club. pretty damn fascinating. co-sponsored by my board members/pals at the lawyers' committee for better housing. sidenote #1: she looks about 10 years younger than ALL those photos. four kids what? sidenote #2: i am shitty at "networking" even when i try. no one from the board was especially committing to a table, except for those who already had predetermined sidley/jenner seats. so i thought i'd be bold and just sit down somewhere. namely, at the one table--at a talk about the supreme court, about 20 feet away from the northern district courthouse--without any damn lawyers. GO ME. oh well, i had some interesting conversations, and who knows? six degrees, butterfly in thailand, etc. etc.

2. this weekend, i did go ahead and attend the cal robbins/j.robbins benefit concert. good times. the life and times = awesome. i always loved shiner, but TLAT is just so majestic. like, if there were some sort of indie rock venn diagram service, and if more people actually heard of them, i suspect there would be a relatively high degree of congruence between "shiner haters" and "TLAT fanatics." continuing a positive trend from when i saw them last fall, they did NOT fuck up "skateland" (it's like, i know you've played it a jillion times on tour, but when a song obviously wants to go a certain way, you should go with it). rapture + headbanging. in a nod to the reason for the concert, they covered "green glass"--flawlessly--and i teared up. on the floor of the empty bottle, swear to god. "for your own special sweetheart" ruled my high school years and it's on my ipod, three years later. (HA.) although i would submit that the full-length from robbins-and-fam's current project, channels, is among his best work. i listened to "little empires" maybe 4 times today. the songs are sharp, as are the lyrics. whereas the thermals (whose album is still rocking my world, and my running regimen) take our current governance not-as-far-as-i'd-be-comfortable-with to its logical endpoint with impressionistic, queasy (and brilliant) lyrics, the channels album is sublter, yet more immediate, all late-stage capitalism, halliburton contracts, and commuter trains. (ed. note--i just realized this is not the first time i have compared both bands side by side. i guess because they're both so relevant and deserving. as is jennifer o'c. still and forever.)

the rest of the bands (except red-eyed legends, who i'm sad i missed: chris thompson = punk rock por vida) i'd always meant to check out, but mostly never have; i now know i've been missing out. yay chicago. it was a random evening. in contrast to my experience at the union club, i somehow found the one cluster of lawyers at the fucking empty bottle. somehow i doubt that it helped my job search, though. also, i won a subscription to time out: chicago, which makes total sense since i get it for free anyway. and also some coffee mugs. and also some time out: london guides which are total travel porn, since i don't see myself getting there anytime in the near future. a guy standing next to me got the pretenders box set; guess i should have turned up the feminine wiles a notch.

3. also, be swift! there is new andrew bird music! on the internet! here and here (and there was also something on you ain't no picasso, which lapsed.) it's shaping up to be a good one. (the pitchfork link seems weird; just google the relevant terms if you're having trouble.)

otherwise, it's been busy yet uneventful. well, relatively busy: i've also seemed to require and devour way more sleep than usual. it's how i stay so beautiful.

and we'll collect the moments one by one

2007-01-20T15:13:00.000-06:00

another thing i forgot to mention which added to the relative tranquillity of last tuesday (which is becoming more distant with each passing second--hi, school! hey there, work! job search, what's up?): on my way home, the busker at jackson blue line stop was playing "mushaboom." i didn't pick up on it straightaway, because of all the surrounding noise, and because that just wasn't a song i was expecting to hear from a lanky black guy at jackson el. but it clicked, and i smiled, and the busker smiled, and i got to enjoy his more languid, bluesy take on the song for about 45 seconds before my train came in. it was nice. no joke. guess that means it's already part of the pop canon; you'll get no argument from me.

and back in real time: i'm trying to read my assignment for my "corporations" class and i just can't hack it. truly the most boring thing i've ever read, and there have been many contenders. if you want to feel what i feel, revisit your least favorite textbook from high school or college. then punch yourself in the face.

happy january 17!

2007-01-17T01:05:00.000-06:00

today was pretty good as far as first days of your last semester of law school go, i suppose. cold and sunny with snow on the ground (i.e., perfect). a run, a class (albeit one containing nearly every person i studiously try to avoid these days...), chicken with tomatoes and acorn squash, a glass of malbec. "boston legal." watched the genteel jim lehrer politely but relentlessly call out our commander in chief. who actually came off as fairly articulate for a while there. i mean, he was spewing nine kinds of bullshit, but it was fairly articulate. it's sad: i initially wasn't sure whether that gave me some small sense of relief, or just made me angrier. until he made the comment about the "cracked egg," which precipitated the inevitable spiral into his usual frat-boy, dry-drunk, pseudo-folksy nonsense. until he talked about sending "21,000 more kids" to iraq while flashing that goddamn smirk. until he conceded that he had "considered" bringing back the draft. until he admitted that there was "no timetable" for this whole fiasco. then my blood went cold.

recently returned from new orleans, which kind of blew my mind. rather than write here, i will email some of you about it, since it's important and i'm never exactly sure who reads this thing. in the meantime, there's flickr to tell the story.

thanks to everyone who made the birthday so lovely.

personal to poorani and trevor and lauren: the new sloan album is GOOD. i have been burned in recent years, but this is a total return to form. way better than a 30-song sloan album in 2007 has any right to be. they are using piano again!

hey, chicagoans: what are you doing on the 27th (other than an anti-surge protest, maybe?)? remember how i wrote about wee cal robbins? well, a fundraiser has been coordinated, involving some of the most interesting talent in chicago as well as good-hearted, stalwart kansas citians the life and times(!). peep the raffle items too. i am so gunning for the stop smiling subscription. i have become a fan in recent months, but the latest issue prefigures my slavish devotion from here on out. devoured it on my various flights last week. aside from the obligatory cat power feature (pretty interesting actually), there were interviews with: superwriter joan didion, the editor of the new yorker, the executive director of the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america, and the rza, addressing issues as disparate as bobby fischer (and why he was exiled), mythology, and oliver north:

"i ain't going to talk to you about politics, but look at oliver north. delivering drugs and guns and guerilla warfare material to other countries, right? comes back, steals the money--him and reagan split the cheese--and he gets busted for this shit. oliver north got busted, caught, gotcha. now this nigga's on tv every day. "war stories with oliver north" [on fox news]. he's a fucking criminal."

elemental perhaps, but you couldn't get an observation like that out of 95 percent of my law school peers. WU-TANG.

slow hello to 2007

2007-01-03T00:14:00.000-06:00

wow, tonight was one of those lost nights, willful, almost forced, procrastination in the face of all the things i ought to do, people i should call. but work today was perpetual motion, and refreshingly un-ADD, so i guess every yin has its yang. thank god parish called, reminding me that i ought to get some sort of handle on whatever the fuck i will be doing in new orleans in, um, 4 days or so. of course, updating my damn blog at 1 am is probably the last thing i need to be doing, but it's already the 2nd (well, 3rd) and the geek in me just couldn't stand it any longer. i don't even have the tolerance to read that many year-end lists any more but i'll be damned if i can resist the urge to make them. i'm just wired that way.

so first, the records and stuff, based primarily on what i listened to the most.

varsity:
* jennifer o'connor, "over the mountain, across the valley..."--i defy anyone i know to dislike this record. no relation. i wish.
* mission of burma, "the obliterati."--more vital than ever. maybe even their best. clint conley is almost as old as my dad, but he can eat crackers in my bed any day. ahem.
* portastatic, "be still please"--a grower, but perhaps the best yet? touching, rocking, delicate, honest, and angry.
* neko case, "fox confessor brings the flood"--singular and gorgeous.
* the thermals, "the body, the blood, the machine"--i've always dug them, and felt that hutch harris's turns of phrase were overlooked (when he wasn't being totally dumb, of course), but it's like their first two records never existed. giant leap forward on every level. i know that a punk rock sorta-concept record about a future american theocracy sounds pretty bad on paper, but BELIEVE IT.

jv:
* the blow, "paper television"--club bangers for introverts. could almost have fallen prey to cloying twee navel-gazing, but doesn't. LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT.
* the hold steady, "boys and girls in america"--i can understand why people don't like 'em, but well, i do.
* tv on the radio, "return to cookie mountain"--i know, how cliche, right? except that it really is that impressive. the first 6 or 7 songs at least. wounded and sharp.
* the plastic constellations, "crusades"--unlikely faves, perhaps, but i turn to this album all the time. it single-handedly got me through finals in may, and many a run since then. heavy as fuck, hooky as hell, and idealistic. that sounds horrible, but whatevs. trust me. even if you don't, you should still read their guitarist's blog, which has probably been the most consistently entertaining thing i've read all year: pureheartedwarriors.blogspot.com. you should start with the george wendt entry, but really, it's all pretty great. deftly uses irony without being "ironic."
* the phoenix, "it's never been like that"--another sort-of grower. different from their signature sound but somehow their strongest album in its consistency. i don't know what the fuck mr. sophia coppola is singing about, but the songs are so elegantly catchy. i agree with the last paragraph of what this guy says.
* girl talk, "night ripper"--fuck the backlashers, this is the funnest. any record that can sample x-ray spex, beyonce, elastica, biggie, sonic youth, the temptations and pavement in a coherent, danceable whole, has my heart. doesn't hurt that he's easy on the eyes, either.
* the pernice brothers, "live a little"--unlike most people, i liked the last record ok, and found this one a grower, teenage-fanclub-aping "somerville" aside. but i came around, and this might be their best. perfect melodies, literate lyrics that should be so pretentious but aren't. and even if they were, well, i think "grudge fuck (2006)" would equalize things.
* someone still loves you boris yeltsin, "broom"--under the radar fave, like a less jaded beulah. from columbia, missouri! fave song--"pangea"--continental drift as relationship metaphor? love it.

and not forgetting: tapes 'n' tapes, "the loon", camera obscura, "let's get out of this country" (minus the overly connie-francis-y songs), channels, "waiting for the next end of the world", sonic youth, "rather ripped", ghostface killah, "fishscale" (i know that comes off as "token hip-hop record for the white girl", but 1) i don't claim to be a hip-hop expert and 2) while i dig lupe and the clipse, et al., and while there is a great deal of art to be found therein, this one has had the most staying power), the evens, "get evens", the life and times, "the magician", 50 foot wave, "free music."

favorite songs/"singles":
* beyonce, "check on it"--is this from last year? whatevs, so loping and catchy. love the sputtering snare drum.
* ghostface killah--"shaky dog." whoa. so many narrative details, it's like an epic poem. i direct you to this guy, who actually managed to summarize it pretty well. (random side note: he's also done some hilariously snarky takedowns of this year's sadly sub-par season of "gilmore girls".)
* beck, "no complaints"--the album is more than uneven, but this might be his best song since "sea change." just basic.
* the blow, "parentheses"--if something in the deli aisle should make you cry, of course i'll put my arm around you and i'll walk you outside, through the sliding doors, why would i mind? see, it has me quoting lyrics like a 14-year old on livejournal, meaning it's a GOOD SONG.
* snow patrol, "eyes open"--i hate their ballads, like any self-respecting girl, but i can't hate this one. the riffage, the winsome, clever-enough, self-deprecating lyrics? i'm sold.
* neko case, "the needle has landed"--mournful and melodic, somewhere in-between girl-group and folk-rock. with heavenly background vocals. i'm a giant fan of visqueen, but, maybe "houston" aside, before this record, i would never have thought that rachel flotard could sound so spectral.
* tv on the radio, "i was a lover"--my nocturnal urban claustrophobic stress jam. you can imagine my suprise when i heard it on the radio in merriam, kansas. good on them.

best nostalgia records for indie fangirls--the lilys, flin flon, the delgados bbc sessions

album slept on last year that i am obsessed with now: the national, "alligator". seriously, we're all so inundated with data these days that great things get lost in the tide. i got this last year, but didn't "get it" until one day in november, at the coffee shop, when i should have been studying, when it hit me HARD. epic and bleak and funny and gorgeous.

band i am now embarrassed i had a boner for: human television

best shows:
* broken social scene at lollapallooza--magic. i won't say any more because it would just make you feel bad.
* the hold steady at the metro--i was happy, they were on, and sean na-na made ridiculous jokes and played "princess and the pony." what more could i ask?
* portastatic at schubas--electric. they played pretty much every song i would have wanted to hear, and that's a lot of songs. except "spying on the spies." fuck a john mayer. if somebody wrote a song like that about me, i would crumble.

non musically...

best meal: the all-day foodstravaganza in new york that began with dim sum (and a sesame/red bean ball, AND a scoop of almond cookie ice cream at "the chinatown ice cream factory,") and ended with korean food, and then failed to die with belgian pomme frites. i love you, jess. (in my defense, i had walked miles and was totally hormonal. and, um, it was all amazing.) close second (tie): vietmamese at the tank with christine; the funnel cakes at pitchforkfest

best store: target

best product at target: wine cube

best fruits: (tie) pluots and clementines

best evidence that america is going to hell: (tie) watching two girls in the space of five minutes take their fucking lap dogs into the bathroom while standing in line for the ladies' room at o'hare; my burrito-eating bet with schad

best times: NYC with lauren and jess (and loren and ben and tara and thomas and julie and ellis) , watching "curb your enthusiasm" with my tipsy mom, my KC friends' visit in may, any of the thursday night outings last spring, lollapalloza with kastrup and jen, any outing to piece with loren, the inexplicably successful three days of partying around halloween (EDIT: and at work after day two of said partying, when i was (again) inexplicably hyper and laughed more and harder then i ever have in my adult life, owing to schad and the incredibly crazy people i work with), south bend trip with the fam, getting hugged by john darnielle

i need to go to bed. i'm leaving out a ton of everything because, ultimately, despite some speed bumps, it was a GREAT YEAR.

but, oh! resolutions:

1. be more confrontational
2. psyche myself out less
3. procrastinate less
4. be a better friend
5. get my fucking refund from fucking united airlines

ha. that's it! happy new year, and i'd better see you on friday!

decompression

2006-12-23T13:49:00.000-06:00

i am sitting here at muddy's coffeeshop in the 816 attempting to get some work done, being blown away by whatever public radio dj is doing her thing right now. without warning, in the middle of an already pleasant string of songs on which i am/hipsters are currently doting, emerged the familiar, nostalgia-inducing chords of "skull." sebadoh bakesale 4-eva!! still love it, proto-emo self-loathing and all.

it's been cozy, carnivorous times here in kc after 12 hours of travel hell on wednesday. i am only mentioning this to say: FUCK UNITED. i realize there was a snowstorm in denver, and i realize that denver is one of their hubs, and i realize that they and all major airlines are bankrupt and understaffed, etc. etc. etc. but even after accounting for these factors, i was subjected to some of the worst customer service i have ever endured for anything, ever. endless hours of breathtaking ineptitude, rudeness, and abandonment punctuated by fragmented, unreliable announcements. the management must really be doing a spectacularly bad job over there. i finally ended up bailing, leaving o'hare all together and taking the last southwest flight out of midway. in summation: FUCK UNITED. now it's all about going running and being slayed by the northeastern kansan hills, assisting my father with last-last-minute holiday shopping (mercifully keeping my lunch in my stomach when a weatherbeaten, beaded-sweater-wearing blonde relentlessly hit on him at 'shop beautiful'), watching the british version of 'what not to wear' with my mom, and reading my book about the kinks. oh, and eating lots and lots of meat.

LOFT PARTY TONIGHT BITCHEZ!!!

something to consider

2006-12-12T17:13:00.000-06:00

this would be really, really, really sad even if it wasn't happening to one of my favorite musicians since forever.

housekeeping

2006-12-11T22:45:00.000-06:00

catching up on some of the recurring themes around here:

1. my inability to cook: on saturday, a new low. i fucked up a bowl of quick oats. OATMEAL. i estimated the water incorrectly and it overboiled and i had to use a strainer. i thought i was ready to graduate from the individual kiddie packets but apparently NOT.

2. the everyday unintentional awesomeness of my friends:

a. so, the other day i filled out one of those ridiculous surveys that an acquaintance had posted on myspace. because i'm secretly 12 years old, and it's finals, and at that particular moment i could deal with "pepsi or crack cocaine?" much more than "describe the scope of the 'intangible rights doctrine' as it relates to the federal mail fraud statute." call it a new low of a different sort. out of the 4 friends that slummed along with me, 3 answered a question relating to the music of jack johnson with "i don't know who that is."

b. the same day, an email from jessica: "is it wrong to think mr. spitzer is sexy?"

all i want for christmas

2006-12-11T21:48:00.000-06:00

well, god bless big brother and guerilla marketing and all of it, because it appears that some wily entrepreneurs have devised the MOST EXACTLY PERFECT gifts for yours truly:

exhibit a: earring of the month club

exhibit b: joan didion non-fiction collection

feel free to take this post literally.

marsha!

2006-11-29T10:25:00.000-06:00

"Dear Claire,

I really like the photo of you and Rob and the kids...(that I took) Yes,
I'd say those two crazy blondes look like Mother and Daughter!! Love,
Mom....thanks for the phone call....Darn it, I missed Boston Legal last
night also. I heard Candice got kidnapped the other night...I'm getting
hooked. I recently saw James Spader on Conan...and He said he liked
dressing up a girl in one episode because the clothes are so much more
comfortable. His favorite things now are good food and drink...and he
admits to gaining girth. That show went from a year like being The
Practice to being very camp.
I can see how you enjoy it. Love, Mom.....ps. stay warm"

thanks, brain

2006-11-28T15:16:00.000-06:00

for choosing today, a few days before finals, to obsess over why i: don't challenge myself/don't have a better job/sell myself short/settle for less than i'm capable of. while we're at it, why don't we go over global warming, the meaning of life, and why no one will ever love me? oh, and that chicken-and-egg thing. i've got NOTHING but time.

oh my goodness!

2006-11-27T21:57:00.002-06:00

thanks for the shout-out, mac mccaughan!

also: there are lots of new photos on my flickr page, because apparently i care about that more than graduating from law school.

hot dresses and sweet jams.

2006-11-21T00:04:00.000-06:00

it was such a long week but by friday i'd forgotten about it. bought a hot dress because my next paycheck is going to be at least twice the usual (although, who am i kidding? i would have bought it anyway). saturday went to erica's birthday party, which was a lot of fun, but cut out early to go see portastatic with kastrup. i had the plans before i knew about her party (and, um, it was portastatic), but i think it all worked out for the best. i just don't think i could have dealt with another night in a generic lakeview/old town bar or club. i love my friends, but my already-limited tolerance for that sort of scene has been worn pretty thin lately. like, threadbare. plus i really needed to laugh a lot, and with kastrup, that's a given. it's too bad i sort of took that for granted for a while.

the show was awesome. apparently so awesome that somebody fainted, although i don't remember it. (and not because i was the faintee. for once.) you know how i feel, or maybe you read hopper in the reader (although i like her blog post better). rocking and heartfelt and true. and just when i thought the show had reached its incendiary end, they played "BABY," gal costa/os mutantes tropicalia touchstone reconfigured as americana rave-up. dude sang the english AND the portuguese. randomly met jim wilbur and the talented violin player while waiting at the bar. totes good people. this means that i have now for-serious talked to 3/4 of superchunk. funny how these things work out.

tomorrow is going to be so crazy, but as long as the blue line is halfway functional, it should be ok.

thanksgiving is going to be awesome this year. i am so stoked and grateful. i hope the same is true for you.

more happy photos.

2006-11-17T00:04:00.000-06:00

another little cousin. sadie grey murphy was born yesterday. one day old, and she looks way wiser than i'll ever be.

given her parents, we know she is already hipper.

half full.

2006-11-16T00:14:00.000-06:00

spent all of yesterday in a legal research k-hole, but things are looking up. to complement my optimism, here is a photo of my young cousins mia and ted:

also, although the underlying events are obviously nothing to laugh at, this is the funniest thing i have read in a little while.

sick.

2006-11-12T17:33:00.000-06:00

i am sick of ricola drops. i am sick of tea. i am sick of my job and almost all of the people there. i am sick of people generally, with about 5 or 6 exceptions.

that last one was particularly exacerbated this morning. as i walked to the bus stop, i saw people ahead of me walking around something. that something turned out to be a homeless guy laying in the middle of the sidewalk. now, i'm as jaded as the next girl; if dude was merely laying in an alley, i would have kept on walking, told myself that he was just sleeping (one off), and convinced myself that there was nothing much i could do anyway. but this guy was in the middle of the sidewalk, and he was kind of twitching. i asked him if he needed to go to the doctor, and he didn't appear to hear me at all. so i called 911, and stayed until the firetruck arrived. the cops and firemen managed to sort of rouse the guy, but it took some doing, and he didn't look well. and when i got on the bus, i could still see a medic trying to communicate with him, and not getting very far. said cops and firemen were obviously annoyed that they were called out to deal with the situation, and they equally obviously thought i was some kind of bleeding heart naif for calling them. (i recognize the redundancy in that sentence, but bear with me; i'm too busy trying not to cough up a lung to worry about syntax.) totally fucking rude macho bullshit. but i'm not mad at them; they still did their job. i am extremely disappointed with all of the people before i got there who didn't do anything. yeah, maybe he was drunk. but who the fuck knows? he could have had a concussion, or a seizure, or worse. and ok, even if they didn't care, even if they could not give a shit about some smelly black homeless guy, they also completely don't care about the many young children who live in the neighborhood.

i am merely extremely fucking frustrated with school.

capsules.

2006-11-09T08:38:00.000-06:00

1. this tells you all you need to know about yesterday:

"cko444: today is so fucked. i'm trying to write a memo on stuff i've never seen before, bill is rageful, angel is gone, jen is wearing ugly boots, and the brownies taste weird."

2. this sums up current events better than i ever could.

3. talented friends:

ad astra per apsera got another pitchfork review and it's not completely gay! and s & t's entity shallowboi got a a glowing writeup in the Ptolemaic Terrascope, which is like the psych-rock bible.

man, i'm glad i'm frittering around on the internet this morning, because it enabled me to see that my conflicts teacher cancelled AGAIN. this makes seriously 6 or 7 times now, excluding holidays! i want a refund.

second wind.

2006-11-02T23:11:00.000-06:00

you know how sometimes you just have the best girl talk, or just plain talk, with a friend, and it makes you feel infinitely better and hopeful about your disfunctional little self? that's the kind of experience i ended up having tonight with loren, at the bar, and in the car. after we drank pbr from giant chalices, or "schooners," as the bartender was intent on describing them. south bend rundown to follow, early-morning-standardized-testing-experience-in-the-southside rundown to follow that, i'm sure.

yin/yang

2006-10-31T18:46:00.000-06:00

man, today has not been that great. not enough sleep, not enough coffee, too much sugar in the coffee i finally got, etc., ad infinitum. i guess nothing affirmatively bad has happened, but i just feel out of rhythm with respect to everything today. characterized by a strong sense that i missed or forgot something obvious with respect to everything i did at work and volunteering. yet ironically, inexplicablly, i seem to know what the fuck is going on in federal crim law right now. oh wait, just kidding, he just started talking about TICKLE ME ELMO. . . . i CANNOT wait to kick it with the o'connors in south bend tomorrow.

if she says we partied, then i'm pretty sure we partied.

2006-10-31T00:22:00.000-06:00

wow! fun times last week. as i told nick parish, i realized once again that from next june until, um, FOREVER, it will be all work all the time, so i am embracing the relative flexibility of my current schedule. in other words: carpe diem, bitches.

weds. was the guest bartending event for the LRAP, at a random bar in the south loop that i found that does that sort of thing. it ended up being really fun, although actually bartending was one of the most stressful tasks i have undertaken in a long time. mercifully, i was only only on call for an hour, at which point i got to drink for free and eat TATER TOTS. lots of folks showed up, including john hiltz, pretty much the only person i truly liked from law review, and the roommate. then went out and met my best homegirl erica, who was in town for work, at some other random bar in that grey area between the west loop and ukie village. i got really real and danced a lot with her 21-year-old-friend (male readers, you missed out) and sang a pretenders song.

thursday i got moderately real and rocked out and saw the hold steady with parish. so much fun, he is truly one of the good guys. catfish haven brought it as well. and the return of sean na na fed my conviviality, although i preferred their/his stage banter to the songs. except for "princess and the pony", which i might have been the only one in the audience to recognize/care about, out of sheer nostalgia, until he dedicated it "to 1999" at which point, the nostalgia evaporated and i just felt old.

on both thursday and friday, the universe truly dealt me get out of jail free cards, because i was not just not hungover, but, irrationally exuberant, so to speak. maybe there were three cards, because i later found out that our occasionally cool, violently passive-aggressive, turbo-bitch of a litigation secretary, was at the show (and got to PARTY WITH THE BANDS) but i had no idea at the time.

friday was bananas. spent at work. one of those days where either everyone was crazy and i was sane, or vice versa, 50/50 odds. just plain weird. started the day with no work, ended the day with too much work, in the process repeatedly laughed harder than i ever have in my adult life as the eccentricities of all my coworkers were somehow amplified a thousandfold and i hit late-day frustration at the absurdity of the particular task i had been given. i swear, it was like, "can you pull a couple recent first district cases on the meaning of life? thanks." so i was a little fried. seriously, if 200 laughs equal 10 minutes of rowing, then i have a six-pack now. ask schad.

finally slept for something like 10 hours on friday night in anticipation of our halloween party the next day. which was really, really fun. lots of people ended up stopping by, many in costume (parish made a particularly ghoulish appearance as HIMSELF.) quote of the evening occurred early on, when this girl, who works in pediatric psych research, explained that she had "taken a year off to work with recreational drugs." as in conducted studies on same...but HA. i defy any of my many brilliant science-oriented friends to drop THAT line in a job interview. one of our neighbors even made it, who is a physicist. like all my neighbors, i barely know him, but potential conversational awkwardness was avoided as van dyke, ever the dark horse, displayed a heretofore unknown avocation for physics. yay for party mingling synergy. best costume would be a tie between this kid in what looked to be a legitmate nasa jumpsuit and caitlin's friend molly, who went as tippi hedren from "the birds." no, seriously. she sported retro attire and wore one of those novelty headbands with little birds suspended over it, but also liberally applied the fake blood. honorable mention goes to caitlin's boyfriend taylor for going as walker, texas ranger (see photo). you can't fuck with chuck norris.

now am rededicating myself to running and studying until this week gets even crazier. on wednesday the entire o'connor clan is going to south bend to see my uncle coach his college basketball team at a tournament at notre dame, where my other uncle teaches. the parents are picking me up at work, and i am truly excited. even my cousin who is a 1L is going. at the other end of the spectrum, saturday morning, i take the "multistate professional responsibility exam." for unknown reasons, parish and schad and i all got stuck with the testing location of kennedy king college, which is roughly located at 68th and bumfuck. and i just found out that i have to go take--and pay for--a passport photo for my exam ticket. whatthefuckever. that should be a fun morning. thankfully, due to loren's reliable contribution of a wine cube and parish's donation of the leftover abita from the hurricane student network benefit, caitlin and i have enough leftover alcohol to survive an apocalypse.

that is all!

great minds thinking alike.

2006-10-19T23:51:00.000-05:00

wow wow wow wow, freaky. i was on the bus today, and i was thinking about how i wanted to reiterate my love for the last few couple, post-fatherhood, portastatic albums. most anyone who knows me and who at all likes the music i like knows that i have been long been down with the superchunk, and correspondingly, portastatic. but neither were bands i would say that i loved for their lyrics; although sometimes very clever and always very earnest, they also came off abstruse and random and either overthought or sort of tossed off. you know, indie rock. (partial exception to “foolish,” which will probably always be one of my top 10 albums of all time.) but something began to change with “the summer of the shark”, which communicated post-9/11 loss and confusion and emotional drift in the most honest way i’ve yet heard, sleater-kinney included. (this guy agrees, much more eloquently.)

and then with “bright ideas” (my number 1 with a bullet last year, i still listen to some portion of it every day), and now “be still please”, mac macaughan entered this completely new terrain. i know that “post-fatherhood” connotes fuzzy sweaters and boring-ass folk songs, but here, construed in its truest sense, it’s really apt. on these albums, open-hearted affection and wonder and humility (“song for a clock”, “i wanna know girls”) is irresolvably juxtaposed with wariness and anger (“bright ideas,” “you blanks”), which is how i’m sure i would feel if i were trying to raise a kidlet in america 2006. it’s kind of how i feel already. and the songs are as good or better than before, too. the new one is a little harder to get into than bright ideas, less immediate, more self-consciously “pretty” (specifically the one inexplicable clarinet (?) solo at the beginning of “you blanks,” otherwise one of my favorite songs on the album), but still solid and becoming more rewarding on each listen.

anyway, i was thinking about it, then i got home and discovered that none other than ms. JESSICA HOPPER beat me to it. le whoa.

i joined the club.

2006-10-18T23:37:00.000-05:00

yesterday i played hooky. capital-h-o-o-k-y-period. but whatever. i give to oxfam on the regular, i've probably paid to see your band play, i'm kind to animals and sometimes children, i can take a day off, right?

two things precipitated the laziness. one, my volunteer site totally flaked on me. two, the previous night saw an incident with my laptop, in which keyboard started fritzing on me. this was kind of the last straw. i was going to try and hold off until next semester, but it was time to embrace the inevitable and buy A Mac. so help me, if the JMLS fucks up my loan in any way, i will unleash a rageful hate unlike anything anybody ever thought me capable of.

but anyway. oh, this machine is beautiful. beautiful. although i can't seem to load google talk and i am having issues with my new, mac-compatible quicken software. which sounds like a nerdy thing to complain about, but it's the only thing standing inbetween Claire Living In Her Wicker Park Apartment and Claire Living In A Cardboard Box.

but anyway. beautiful.

truth is funnier than fiction.

2006-10-16T20:52:00.000-05:00

HA.

well, fiction is pretty funny too.

this week's hit parade.

2006-10-12T16:55:00.000-05:00

8. the old woman i met at the anti-war rally. spookily, she was a fellow traveller from from fairway, kansas, hotbed of radicalism. she lives here now, came in from the south suburbs because she felt so strongly, even though she conceded (rightly) our naivete at being there. (the rally itself kind of sucked but that's another story.) anyway, in contrast to all the tired and shrill slogans that surrounded us, she sported a button that simply read: "peace takes courage." i like that.

7. the new portastatic album, and i haven't even heard it yet. i'm just that stoked. (related: this. and this.)

6. seeing talented kansas buddies ad astra per aspera featured in pitchfork.

5. this video. it's fun to watch, and appears to feature a fair amount of lollapalooza footage.

4. the snow. not freezing rain, but legitimate, beautiful flakes of snow. even though it arrived way too early.

3. my fairly decent performance in the bucktown 5k, which officially solidifies my status as a Wicker Park Yuppie.

2. my upcoming interview with polsinelli, shalton, welte, suelthaus, p.c.

-8000. giving my shitty "closing argument" in a half hour.

1. getting to see swearing at motorists afterward.

shiny objects.

2006-10-01T20:38:00.000-05:00

not to get all consumer fetishist on you, but i got the best pair of shoes today.
i just couldn't say no. but i am working an extra day this week and got my drinks paid for on friday (and my chicken the night before...long story) so it evens out, right? right?

please don't answer that honestly.

ensuring that i will never learn.

2006-09-28T15:31:00.000-05:00

so my procrastination was rewarded, as my 10:00 class was cancelled yet again. for those who are keeping score, that's 3 times in 2 weeks. with yom kippur on monday.

anyway, i am pretty stoked on this song.

priorities.

2006-09-27T22:46:00.000-05:00

WHOA. A MUST-READ. via julianne shepherd, who correctly notes that analyzing dick cheney is like deconstructing a russian doll; every insight ultimately leads to another enigma. even if you have read 15 books on the subject and the iran-contra report. even if you are one of the most incisive essayists on the planet.

cons and pros of procrastination:

cons: um, class? tomorrow?
pros: reading something that good, and talking to poorani.

i think we know which side wins.

ave maria

2006-09-24T02:13:00.000-05:00

wow! tonight ended up being pretty great. everything that was contingent on good timing worked out flawlessly. today, like a lot of the past few saturdays, i somehow managed to waste far too many hours, before getting remotely productive (productive being watching nick1 put together my coffee table and going grocery shopping). then rushed home through the rain to turn around and go to rachael and dominic's surprise engagement party. yes, rachael, as in my best law school friend first year. who i really haven't seen since then, due to our mutual crazy schedules. i forgot how much i missed her. even though their engagement is really no surprise (after 9 years?), i am so, so excited for those kids. and rachael was really, really surprised.

the party was thrown by her two best high school friends + amy hornbeck. it was martha stewart-tastic, and i intend that as high praise. everything was beautiful and tasty. and amy? so fun and so genuine. she went to my high school and then later to my law school, and then transferred to loyola at the same time as rachael. and while she seemed pleasant enough, i am embarrassed to say that i kind of wrote her off. to be fair, i didn't really interact with her that often, but i sort of assumed that she was just an upscale sorority chick. but after hanging out with her this evening, i saw that she is really enthusiastic and open-minded and kind. i know that i am generally a nice person, but this evening was a reminder of how judgmental i can be and how hypocritical that is. life lesson #1.

everybody else there kind of conked out early, so, after waiting forever for a cab, i finally made it back to my apartment. my initial plan had been to hit the party and then see the life and times, but after the cab debacle, i wasn't sure if i had missed most of the show, or if i should stay out anyway. enter life lesson #2: trust my instincts more often. after thinking about it for a minute, i bolted to subterranean, where the band had just started playing. i was still hopped up on raspberry buttercream cupcakes, and my kansas city blood just wouldn't let me do otherwise. and wow. you know i love this band, but last time i saw them, i felt like i had to .defend them to my companions ("they're kind of messing with the song tonight, but on the album...") but god, that was such a warped night anyway, i should not speak of it more than i have to. anyway, tonight, they were so on. i think i have seen them 4 times now, and this was far and away the best. (i gather that a lot of other people there felt the same way). the rock was heavier, the shoegaze gauzier, the rhythm tighter. the crowd demanded a second encore, and the band obliged admirably, despite the fact that they were obviously grasping for songs to play. yay for focused kansas citians!

a nice end to a nice week. my dad was in town again. after hearing more about his current business endeavor, i am so, so proud of him. he is so fucking smart and tenacious. and i was given a really great assignment at work yesterday. so hopefully things are looking up for the o'connor clan.

post-blah.

2006-09-21T01:54:00.000-05:00

wow, i can't believe i am up right now. lately when i get home, i can't be bothered to turn on the computer, or the tv (except for the beeb). generally in favor of talking to the roommate and reading. at any rate, i have been getting to bed consistently early. i think i have actually been getting the prescribed eight hours a night! insane.

these weeks are starting to speed up, and i can feel the noose tightening as far as school is concerned. but it's good. clearly i need the pressure to keep me interested. and it's not unenjoyable either. i mean, today in trial ad i conducted two direct examinations, a cross, and was a witness, and, momentarily, a judge. (while being decidedly not on my a-game.) but i also laughed out loud at several points during the evening. norgle, he's a funny dude.

although it started with me being bored and writing overcaffeinated record reviews into the void, last thursday ended up being a great day. and a housing-law-centric one. in the afternoon, my predatory lending class went out to, like, 63rd and kedzie for an orientation with the greater southwest development corporation and neighborhood housing services. great people, and it was nice to get to know a neighborhood with which i wasn't that familiar. was fortunate to get a ride back from professor seng, who astounds me more every day, and hustled over to jenner for the lawyers' committee awards ceremony/fundraiser. every year i attend, and every year i write something effusively sentimental. and this year is not going to be any different. the organization is just growing so well and the event is always such a bighearted gathering. the keynote speaker/winner this year was alex polikoff (he litigated that gautreaux case, maybe you've heard of it?), who was utterly sobering. on the eve of the 4oth anniversary of martin luther king's arrival in chicago, he reflected on the progress of king's objectives since then...or the lack thereof. in contrast, the kid who won the "attorney of the day" award, an IP attorney at some big firm, was funny and heartfelt and almost made me cry. his speech totally went on too long, oscars-long, but nobody could be mad at him: he won a giant award for this family who was locked out of its apartment and had much of its property destroyed. $70,000, that's almost unheard of in the universe of eviction law.

i spoke at length with chief judge evans, who seems like he genuinely cares about his work, and the larger system he's a part of. and saw joe, and ceci, and professor stark, and professor hammond (who's surprisingly lucid when she's not teaching property). even better, i got to meet some of the members of the better housing action network and their families. these are former clients of the organization, who on top of managing their housing and jobs and families, have gone to springfield to participate in advocacy for laws that support safe and decent housing. and i got an lcbh t-shirt: so hot right now.

the quote of the night, or maybe the year, came from this guy from the uptown people's law center: "i don't think eviction court is any different from iraq or guantanamo bay. i think it all comes down to the same issue--the rule of law, and whether we decide to honor it." say word, son.

speaking of which, what are you doing october 5? me too.

(related: casey kasem?????!!! omg.)

pretty bombs.

2006-09-18T10:23:00.000-05:00

um, so, professor green cancelled class again. last time was a pleasant surprise, now it's a little bit alarming. we're going to be so behind, especially since yom kippur is on a monday this year, too. might as well blog about records.

'cause a lot of good ones have come out recently. the most notable, to me, is the new one by channels. if you worship at the altar of j. robbins (and i really really do, although that feeling does not extend to the crappy dude bands he sometimes produces), this will be a revelation. i felt like the second burning airlines record was a little slick, and a little scattered. ditto the first channels e.p., though both had their share of amazing songs as well. but this album is an excellent return. clenched-teeth crooning? check. eviscerating sentiments? check.* tricky guitar lines, pummelling drums, incongruously catchy melodies? check, check, and check, augmented and improved upon by the silvery vocals of robbins' wife, janet. 12 pop songs with a serious case of claustrophobia. so awesome.

speaking of same, the new thermals record is really great too. probably their strongest album yet. the thermals' songs are structurally simple, but they stand out because they didn't forget that you're supposed to have hooks AND melodies...and, oh yeah, genuine feeling. i think people sometimes overlook the fact that hutch harris is capable of some pretty clever turns of phrase, as well (not that he chooses to exercise that skill in every song...). and don't worry about the "concept album" talk--there's definitely some consistent themes running through the lyrics, along with a pervasive feeling of uncertainty and anxiety--but it's not distracting or oppressive. and "test pattern" is just a love song, and a really sweet one at that. i once read an article that described the thermals' sound as a cross between gbv and the buzzcocks, and i can't get more accurate than that. does that mean that harris is in the same league as shelley or pollard? no. does that mean that this is a good album? yes.

finally, i heartily endorse jennifer o'connor's latest. no relation, unfortunately. i guess i kind of echo my sentiments about the thermals album here. superficially, her sound could be lumped in with lame coffeehouse folkies who can't let go of lilith fair....but her songs are SO MUCH BETTER. better melodies, better lyrics, better vocals. her voice is great, low-key yet pure. and the songs, while dealing with some pretty wrenching subject matter (bad break-ups, the death of a sibiling), are ultimately strong and forward looking. like a female, less fragile, elliott smith.

you're welcome.

*(that said, the album contains a newer, rawer version of standout song "chivaree" in which robbins rejects anger for its own sake in favor of unabashedly loving the ones closest to you, despite all the craziness and despair in the world. i know, right?)

oh.....

2006-09-17T22:03:00.000-05:00

my god. east coast friends take heed. i'm not sure if i can afford to miss trial ad that late in the semester (or afford it, generally), but this is mightily tempting. i guess i'd better figure it out quickly since tickets go on sale tomorrow.

blah.

2006-09-14T11:05:00.000-05:00

so my ten o'clock class was cancelled today, and i'm really a loss for what to do with my time. there's nothing pressing that i have to do for school or work, and LRAP stuff is best left to the weekend. this whole semester is really throwing me off by being so damn manageable. it's like i don't know what to do with myself unless i'm maniacally busy. it's like how nick1 has been saying that even with seventeen credit hours, he's not feeling challenged. (although that's easily enough explained by the fact that four of those hours are with wangerin.) i guess it's just the third-year, pre-bar, senioritis blues.

i'm loving the new roommate. she's very genuine and eclectic and just easy to talk to. i was impressed when on her, like, second day in the apartment, she had dinner with my father and i and was able to roll with it gracefully. (i love my dad, but he can come on kind of strong if you've never met him before.) also, she subscribes to the new yorker. now i can catch up on my seymour hirsch and sasha frere-jones without even leaving the house!

last weekend, i hit the third day of the hideout/touch and go fest with stef and tyler. it was raining and legitimately cold, but fun. seam played the best set by a thousand miles, as far as i'm concerned. their genius lies in their ability to be both understated and intense at the same time; i'm tempted to use the word "elegant," but that sounds too stuffy. anyway, they were tight and rocking and their songs gained a certain heft in the live setting. at the end, it felt a lot like broken social scene at lollapalooza: there was an electricity in the air and nobody was willing to accept that it was over.

well, i'm either going to read estates and trusts or go shoe shopping, but before i do, a question: have you forgotten to read the guardian lately? me too. here are two reasons why we should tie a string around our fingers:

1. whoa. like a 21st-century u.k. studs terkel. yay for cool namesakes. i am going to have to read this column every week.

2. well done. i agree with the writer's points of emphasis.

i'm going to go see catfish haven on saturday, you should come too.

my mistake.

2006-09-06T13:15:00.000-05:00

so one of the attorneys asked me into his office to talk to me about something. as we were discussing the assignment, he pulled whatever he was eating out of his mouth WHILE talking and without excusing himself. i involuntarily winced, thinking he didn't see me. of course he totally did. by way of response, he stared at me and said, somewhat pointedly, "it's a lozenge." i guess that's supposed to make it less gross.

i'm confused.

2006-09-06T10:54:00.000-05:00

my horoscope yesterday said that someone from my past would unexpectedly reappear. wow, they sure fucking nailed it.

three-day weekend

2006-09-04T22:26:00.000-05:00

this weekend was all over the place, yet unified by two themes: 1. not doing schoolwork and 2. having a good time. friday hung out with christine and finally saw some episodes of "veronica mars." whoa. this is possibly the coolest show currently on television. it is dark. not "edgy," but legitimately dark. noir. lauren captured it best by characterizing it as twin-peaks-meets-buffy. for reals.

saturday did a whole lot of nothing--slept in, went running, ran errands--then headed out for loren's 30th/ben's brother's 21st. good times. it was a fun mix of people. a couple fellow law students, but mainly their peeps from indy and ben's brother's friends from loyola. i was particularly impressed by loren's sister, who is obviously extremely smart and ambitious but not remotely conceited about it, as well as her boyfriend, who just got back from iraq, poor kid. (jason, don't start.) had a really rewarding conversation with both of them about bullshit we have dealt with as women in litigation-related jobs: she had come up against some of the same stuff as i (and some of my classmates) have in recent months. but that's so definitely another post that i don't feel like writing just now. at the stroke of 12, the party left casa loren y ben to go to a cute bar on damen. ben was in rare form; it's cute when he's in "special occasion mode," but it tends to mean that he foists free alcohol on me that i may or may not need. pretty much everyone there was laidback, smart, and funny, and i could tell loren had a ball. it was nice.

sunday was the most schizophrenic. i was miraculously only hungover for a highly sleepoffable hour or two (underdogg, thank you once again), then read a bunch of magazines and talked to my mom. and did a small amount of homework. on a whim, thinking it would be a quiet night, i went to the siskel center and saw "old boy" (part of the "vengeance trilogy" by chan-wook park), which i'd been meaning to see for years. holy mother of god. it was amazing, funny even. and beautifully shot. but if i scoured the darkest, most perverse corners of my psyche, i don't think i could imagine anything that even remotely approaches some of the events that take place in this movie. by the end you realize that it's definitely a moral fable of sorts, albeit a visceral, hugely fucked-up one. i was seriously traumatized afterwards. on my way to grab a bite to eat, got a text from tar-bear, who, after a sojourn to ny, is now back in the 773 for the duration. she was going out with a couple people, and while i had planned on staying in, i knew that i needed to get outside of my head after seeing that movie. the "bar" i met her at turned out to be more like a half-assed club in gold coast, SO not my scene and so undeserving of a cover charge, but it was good to see tara again. the crowd was so annoying (let's just say that none of the guys had necks and all of them were bald), but i eventually managed to get into the spirit of things and get down a little bit. bailed pretty early though. i have my limits.

then today, bbq #1 was canceled due to rain, but bbq #2, at kastrup's, was still on. we enjoyed beer, ribs, sweet corn and homemade ice cream. can you think of a better labor day meal? it's not possible. and even better, scott offered free furniture for my now-barren apartment! and even better than that, it wasn't ghetto! this kid ran was there, from nu, that i hadn't seen in 4 years. it was interesting to catch up. (no, jess, he's not fat...i'm kind of disappointed.) tommorrow should be fairly low-key, i'm skipping my evening class to go hang out with with my dad, who's in schaumburg for business. i convinced him to drive me to target. yes! hopefully he will have a new crop of politically-incorrect jokes to share; he 's been on quite a roll lately.

personal to lp: i'm so glad that you called--hang in there.

trial ad is fun.

2006-09-01T02:02:00.000-05:00

this evening i used the phrase "pee break" while addressing the honorable charles r. norgle of the northern district of illinois, in class, in his courtroom. don't worry, i actually had a reason, and it wasn't that i needed to avail myself of one. related: in his chambers, there is a big brass plaque with an hawk on it that says, "eagles don't hunt flies."

fuck you, motherfucker.

2006-08-30T01:02:00.000-05:00

aaargh! i am sitting here, doing some long-overdue balancing of the checkbook, and watching jimmy kimmel, which was mainly amusing. and then the musical guest came on. pat green or tim green, or something, some douchebag with a soul patch. i'm open-minded, but he lost me about 0.000001 seconds in, when he TOTALLY LIFTED THE HOOK from "passionate kisses" by mary chapin-carpenter, with nary a syncopation or a chord or ANYTHING to make it distinguishable from the original. man, the sheer unoriginality alone might well have killed it for me, but the audacity of taking so brazenly from what is indisputably an awesome song* sealed the deal. i won't go into the details of why it's an awesome song (hopefully you already know), but, suffice to say, it galls me. and towards the end, just when i was kind of starting to calm down, he totes stole the riff from "summer of '69" for the coda. what a dick.

*(as well as one from his advertised genre of "country," i.e. he should have known better.)

nyc redux

2006-08-15T21:42:00.000-05:00

gaaah. my trip to new york was amazing. amazing weather, amazing food, amazing shopping, and even more amazing friends and family. just the booster shot of amazingness that i needed before school, and its attendant responsibilities, start up again in earnest. the quality time with jess, lauren, loren, tar-bear, wayne, mimi, thomas, and my little cousin ellis was invaluable. that said, i think i went home at the right time. not only did i pick a seriously bad time to leave work (which makes me that much more badass), but i think i was starting to miss the atmosphere of chicago. the streets of new york are always teeming with people--it's like rush hour every hour--which can be either energizing or enervating depending on how it hits you. after four straight days, i found it was starting to tend towards the latter. that said, from soho to long island, from economy candy to the chinatown ice cream factory, good times abounded. big thanks to LZP and chrissy the wonder dog for hosting me!

here are my photos from the trip; hopefully my uncle will send cute cousin-pics posthaste.

this is the short version.

2006-08-11T00:33:00.000-05:00

man, it's just my dumb luck that this terrorism threat/toothpaste ban would coincide with the one week in which i have to travel from one of the nation's largest airports to one of the nation's other largest airports. i really hope that i don't have to deal with any major delays. i'm still not entirely convinced that this isn't all just some covert plot by proctor and gamble to increase sales. that's a crass joke, i know, but seriously: rebuying all of my toiletries at duane reade would NOT be a good look this weekend.

argh. i just spent the last several hours doing last-minute clerkship app/lawyer's commitee/pilc/work stuff/correspondence all the while plowing my way, mouthbreathing and saucer-eyed, through the random, sneaky sinus attack that has befallen me over the last couple of days. however, i feel that last weekend needs to be encapsulated better than my last post allowed for.

so, i give you lollapallooza lists:

best stage banter

new pornographers. carl newman is always good for it, and you know how i love a sarcastic nerd: (after a spontaneous audience clap-along at the close of "the bleeding heart show") "we've got more fucked-up time signatures than, like, coheed and cambria. little known fact. so if you're going to try and clap, good luck to you." (and subsequently) "this one is a crowd-pleaser. so i can talk shit beforehand." "we're the new pornographers. from denmark."
the hold steady. specifically, craig finn's erudite youth-slang retelling of the history of saint barbara: "see, being a christian then wasn't like being a christian now. being a christian 300 years after christ's death was like...having a face tattoo." "so when he got back, the king was like, "let's execute barbara." and her dad was like, 'yeah, sounds awesome.'" seriously, the kids were rapt. as was i.
feist. well, duh. even if you don't like her album (which i can understand, even though i think it's mostly awesome), you've got to love her performances. she picks up the intensity of her songs accordingly, and she's engaged with the audience the whole time. i love how she is so warm, and open, and playful--goofy, even--yet still conveys that she is a woman and not some girl-child naif.

spooky-good musical moments

broken social scene. all of it. hands down, the best set of the festival, and that's saying something. so the basic setup of the event was that there were eight stages of varying sizes, the largest two at either end of the park. the music was scheduled such that no band (theoretically) was ever playing on top of another band at a neighboring stage. most bands played for an hour, a few for 45 minutes; friday and saturday there were two headliners for an hour and a half (8:30-10) at both of the big stages. sunday, there was only one headliner: the red hot chili peppers. who for some reason got an extra 15 minutes, meaning that their set began at 8:15. blues traveler, playing at the opposite end from where the chili peppers would be, got a full hour (and i would argue one hour too many), but broken social only got 45 minutes as they were near the headline stage. so when they took the stage, to a large and appreciative crowd, you could tell they were going to try to really bring it. i wasn't sure who was going to be playing with them, but i was hoping that some of the members who had already appeared with their own bands would show. well, it turned out to be EVERY SINGLE MEMBER, including emily haines. like, 15 or 16 people, counting the violin and horn players. it was spectacularly beautiful. and what happened at the end was unlike anything i've ever experienced at a concert. as they ended with the stomping, screeching "ibi dreams of pavement," kevin drew brought everyone on stage and led the audience in cathartically yelling and cheering along with the band. it was a great moment, and there was a certain electricity in the air. and then they had to stop, the 45-minute mark having arrived. the audience kept clapping and cheering and calling for an encore, and for a minute or two it looked like there might be one. but even as it became apparent that the band was taking its equipment down, the crowd kept on cheering. as much or more out of appreciation for the performance than as a request for an encore. this went on for over 15 minutes. i've never seen anything like it. whenever a band member made it on stage to take down an amp or wave at the crowd, they looked legtimately humbled and sad that they couldn't continue playing. the crowd did not dissipate until the chili peppers came on, the jumbotron displaying flea in some disturbing multicolored bodysuit. at that point, everyone near us booed. which may not have been totally fair to the chili peppers, but was an understandable reaction. the crowd was so galvanized by the performance they had just witnessed. it's hard to explain, but it was special.
sleater-kinney. as most of you probably know, lollapalooza marked one of their last concerts for the foreseeable future. i actually hadn't even seen them live in a couple of years, despite the fact that 'one beat' has emerged as a solid favorite of mine, and despite the fact that their weakest moments are still more distinctive than most bands' flashes of genius. i have mixed feelings about "the woods". i think it was, to use the adjective again, a distinctive album, and definitely gritty and intense and real. it's just, some of the guitar jams are too much for my attention span. that's one of the main reasons why i'm sad they're breaking up--"the woods" felt to me like a textbook "transitional album", and i would have liked to have heard what was to follow. being their most recent, and final album, s-k's set leaned heavily on its songs. and there were a couple moments where, dare i say it, i zoned out a bit (mainly during "what's mine is yours." why they dumped such a sprawling coda in the midst of such a hooky song is truly beyond me.). but those moments were obliterated by the intense, intense rendering of "let's call it love" (yes, the longest of the long ones). the guitar solo led into several minutes of free form, i guess you'd HAVE to call it, "jamming", but it never got boring. they kept pushing the sound into different directions, yet it all made perfect sense, effortlessly bleeding into an especially cathartic version of "entertain" which was jaw-dropping. there will definitely be a void in sleater-kinney's absence. not just in terms of gender, but in terms of power.
the hold steady. specifically when the sun parted the heavy clouds hovering over the park at the EXACT moment when holly gets born again in "multitude of casualties." it was uncanny to say the least. the whole set was great. i fear that their new songs may be borrowing less selectively from classic rock, may be pushing the conceit too far. it's hard to tell. regardless, their set was so much fucking fun. they are so reverent of their fans, and rock and roll. and given that i listen to "banging camp" about twice a day on average, it was nice to hear it live again for a change.
catfish haven. unfortunately i missed their first few songs, but their set was one of the gems of the festival. i will admit that i am a little late to the catfish party. i distinctly remember their lead singer approaching me at a pig roast in pilsen 3 or 4 years ago, coming off like a VERY drunk, cherubic hell's angel, so i got a weird first impression before i ever heard their music. i saw them at schuba's not long after, and while his voice impressed me, stunned me even, their songs at the time did not. but they've clearly tightened their shit up. i love their recent e.p. so much, it's like gbv meets van morrison at his peak. but, on sunday, i was still surprised to see that they've turned into a full-on soul machine, complete with horns and keyboards and backup singers. (black women! on stage! at lollapalooza! not in the go! team!) oh man. while there was one new song that seemed to veer a little too perilously into white-boy funk, the rest was next-level. this is the real deal.

best non-musical aspects

sweet leaf iced tea, especially mint-honey. simply put, it's liquid crack.
andrew bird on the jumbotron
the skyline of downtown chicago

anyway, i have some half-assed photos of the whole thing on flickr.

ok, i seriously need to sleep. see you tomorrow, new york city!

post-palooza

2006-08-07T14:34:00.001-05:00

things i don't have after this weekend:
--money
--my voice
--my tolerance for stupid people
--my tolerance for text messaging

things i do have:
--my tan (i'm totally not joking!)
--my hearing (surprisingly)
--the afterglow resulting from having a blast for three solid days

and in three more days, i'm going to have an even better time in new york. it's almost scary.

nerd alert/john darnielle gave me a hug!

2006-07-29T23:49:00.000-05:00

first off: taqueria super burrito? at 10 pm? on a sunday? manna from god's own heaven. that's why i have their number in my cell phone, no joke.

second: no, that's not a typo! pitchfork day one was ridiculously hot, but well organized, all things considered. met up with christine and her friends just in time for the mountain goats. since the goats weren't their thing, i thereupon promptly ditched said group, but i feel entitled. dudes opened with "jenny," which for whatever subjective reason had been pretty much the one song i really wanted to hear from anyone all day, and which obviously made me happy. "dance music," "cubs in five," "the fall of the star high-school runningback," and an excellent franklin bruno cover ("houseguest") were also played. not everything translated in the space and the heat, but it was pretty awesome nonetheless. later on, up close for art brut (who for whatever subjective reason make christine very happy), we found ourselves near some of the musician and writer intelligentia. i had a very pleasant exchange with jim derogatis about how awesome his lester bangs book was and why he's not on tv anymore, and stood next to the aforementioned mr. bruno, whose take on "armed forces" for the 33 1/3 series was one of my favorite books of last year and whose old band made me very, very happy many years ago. i think i saw the divine ms. jessica hopper too.

anyway, at that time, john darnielle and friends moved past us, and i was compelled to pat him on the shoulder and give a quick "great job today!" because, you know, i really felt that way. he said thanks, prepared to move on, then paused, smiled at me, and gave me a hug. it really meant a lot. not in the thirteen-year-old-omg-i'm-never-washing-this-dress-AGAIN! sense (although, shhhyeah, i definitely felt that way for at least five minutes afterward), but more profoundly. i realized, once again, that if someone does or says something nice for you, you can either give a cursory, if acceptable, thanks, or take a second to do it one better. if you choose the latter, then it will probably make both of you feel that much better.

otherwise, it was obviously great people-watching and a very mixed crowd. there were folks in breathtakingly weather-inappropriate attire, and others who could stand to cover up a bit. there were hipsters and fratsters (one dude, returning from the beer tent, notably exclaimed, "dude! this is the one song i've recognized all day!" when "the rat" came on....but if yr gonna know a song, i guess that's not a bad one!) and in-betweeners like me, who really shouldn't judge.

it was a great day, but even above and beyond the hug, the silver jews were the highlight. oh my. gorgeous, completely gorgeous, and that's not really an adjective i would have thought to apply to them before now. cassie berman is probably the most elegant woman i have ever seen in real life. (one of the most beautiful too, but i mean to refer to something beyond that.) and obviously, she totally wails. best stage banter of the night, bar none, including but not limited to berman's thoughts on his recent trip to the middle east and his issues with brian wilson as musical inspiration. the languid guitar, the lush keyboards, the backdrop of the moon and a beautiful church cast against the night sky, and most importantly, the amazing songs: it was lovely.

today?

mission of burma. oh my g-g-g-g-g-g-g-o-d-d-d. they opened with "that's how i escaped my certain fate," in my opinion, the best punk song ever written, and one of my favorite songs, generally. their sound, especially circa 2006, is so relentless, yet so nuanced. i defy you to find a more relevant, rocking and tuneful band right now, especially as compared to some of their past contemporaries orchestrating lame "reunions" these days. it was a little weird how many teenagers were in the audience. i mean, kids who absolutely had to be eight to ten years younger than me, but who recognized and responded to most of the songs, even from "vs." did it make me feel old? sure, yeah, briefly. but if the high-schoolers are listening to burma, then maybe we're not so fucked after all.

then i spent an hour on the phone talking with my brother and with jess, both to catch up with them and to avoid devendra banhart's set. what little i heard made me shudder.

then there was yo la tengo, perenially cute, pop historians, masters of the rock song in all its forms. who else could go from a garage-rock frug to an extended noise jam to a positively yacht rock lite-funk groove without missing a beat? they leaned a little heavy on the jamz at the end, but it all sounded good. several new songs were played. from what i heard, their album really ISN'T afraid of you and it WILL beat your ass.

other highlights:

quasi-celebrity sightings: aziz ansari, fred armisen (twice), mark greenberg of the late lamented coctails walking with his wife and kids (so cute), the dude from the m's wearing a questionable sombrero (not so cute), the kid who works at jmls bookstore.
the FUNNEL CAKES. oh, man. i've had some good ones, and i've had some horrible, rubbery ones, at fuck, i don't know, worlds of fun or wherever, but these were amazing. the one i had saturday was so good i had to buy one on sunday. am i a tool for spending five dollars on a piece of fried dough? probably. do i care? not really. i am a slave to the carbs, what can i say?
the kids that gave me a free cab ride on saturday.
seeing the aforementioned mr. darnielle pumping his fist and singing along to "that's when i reach for my revolver" and several other burma songs, not five feet away from me. does somebody have a crush? yeah, probably, kinda. as if his writing hadn't already accomplished that.
finding out that the aforementioned aforementioned mr. bruno has a new musical concern! while wandering the indie-rock flea-market tent, i came upon the tight ship records booth. i guess it's a new label, run by barry phipps, ALSO of the late lamented coctails, that puts out rare/exclusive/left-of-center recordings by chicago musicians. they had bbc sessions from archer prewitt, something or other from the like young, and then they had...the human hearts. franklin bruno, jean cook (now of the beauty pill), mark greenberg, and some other guy. of course i totally bought it. i've listened to about half of it and it's totally nothing painted blue v. 2.0 in the best way, i.e. hyper-literate power pop. love it love it.

yeah, so, and, there was also ted leo (who debuted "army bound," a new, chisel-esque song that excited me in that the melody was more sophisticated than most of the last album, and the drumming was killer too , the walkmen, spoon (who also debuted a cool, promising new song), etc. etc. and the futureheads, who i'd never heard before now, but whose singer distinctly resembles paul weller. well done all around.

what the hell is going on?

2006-07-29T12:46:00.000-05:00

which i guess just signifies more of the same. i just got back from walgreens, where i purchased two mousetraps. yep, that's right, somewhere in the last 24 hours, ali and i discovered a little grey stowaway. it's tiny, and cute (or would be, under any other circumstances) and seems way more terrified of us than the other way around. but fuck. i love how this little situation coincides with my several upcoming appointments to show the apartment in the next several days. "really, i love this place. i've had no problems....what? mouse? oh, that wasn't a mouse, that was a...shadow. yeah, a shadow. that's the ticket."

and in the last several days, i've experienced two bouts of relative paranoia, about my job, and a friend, respectively. maybe i really *am* turning into my mom. oh, well. i enjoyed an extremely decadent meal and cathartic conversation with kelley and friend the other night, in advance of k.'s impending london internship adventure. i'm so excited for her; no one deserves such an opportunity more than she does. and, in a matter of hours, i will be seeing ted leo, the walkmen, THE MOUNTAIN GOATS, and THE SILVER JEWS. that oughta help too.

yeah, it's oven-hot outside, but i'm thinking that it doesn't seem as humid as it could be...or maybe i'm just delirious already.

distracted.

2006-07-25T10:23:00.000-05:00

my sales final is tommorrow. and while i still have plenty of work ahead of me today, my main concern at this point is the fact that i completely forgot to sign up to take my exam by computer. with respect to my handwriting, friends have recently commented: "you really should have gone to med school instead," and, less politely, "you write like a serial killer." whatever. at least i don't have Big Puffy Girl Handwriting. it's a completely irrational pet peeve, i know, but i feel strongly nonetheless.

work has been ok, but a little slow. except for the remarkably dramatic circumstances surrounding the sudden departure of gonzo (i.e. the eccentric, socially inept, vaguely creepy attorney). seriously, in the context of our little firm, it was practically "trapped in the closet." i really hope that guy can work out his issues, because he's got some. long-term, his departure is a very good thing. short-term, it meant that nick2 and i had to excavate his office to locate and salvage his case files. (one word: YUCK. if i had a nickel for every document with a mystery food stain on it, law school would be paid off. seriously, there should have been a hazmat crew up in that bitch.) the upside was that nick and i had free reign to listen to the mountain goats and bullshit like third graders while doing so. which was well-timed, as i have been one giant hormone this week.

otherwise, i have been running around looking for a new roommate since ali decided to leave. i'm sad, but i can't begrudge her since her current commute is pretty bad. based on the responses i've gotten so far, i'm pretty confident i'll find someone responsible and low-key. it's just one more thing to do. but if i can just keep my head down and take care of everything i need to do in these next couple weeks (roommate stuff, clerkship apps, any number of other little things) i know i will be richly rewarded by the pitchforkfest/lollapalooza/NYC!!! trifecta that is my next three weekends. in spirit, that is. financially, of course, i'll be cashed, but you know it's so worth it.

finally....

mac maccaughan blogging? very cool. mac maccaughan blogging about an elaborately snarky takedown of "the butterscotch stallion" by the members of steedily d? AWESOME.

equally awesome? this band, and that album title.

alright, i should have been at jmls yesterday. wish me luck!

my job is better than your job.

2006-07-20T13:22:00.000-05:00

so my boss just came by and asked nick2 and i if we wanted to go to the cubs game. he has season tickets and was still recovering from the game last night. work was not an issue: he said he would "hide us". i'm more of a sox fan, personally, but who am i to argue with the boss? see you suckers later.

the soundtrack to summer*

2006-07-20T00:48:00.000-05:00

so lately, i've been kind of obsessed with this band, human television. totally excellent throwback to the heyday of slumberland records (a.k.a., claire's soundtrack 1992-1996ish). think: the wedding present, the lilys, the ropers (!), the smiths (marr only), and ride. goes down easier than a diet dr. pepper. see you at schubas on friday.

* (aside from the new phoenix album. don't believe all the hype--it's pretty awesome. yes, the new guitar sound is superficially reminsicent of the strokes. however, it's still the phoenix. which means that it's way more interesting, and, perhaps more importantly, NOT as blase or cynical, than that band. is there anything as revelatory as "if i ever feel better"? of course not. but it bears remembering that, on the earlier albums, for every "too young" or "i'm an actor", there was a "funky squaredance" or nu-jazz splooge. this one is totally consistent, totally catchy, and totally smart.)

typically baffling.

2006-07-19T23:33:00.001-05:00

so, this is totally old news, but, as usual, i've been too busy/lazy (truly a binary, as far as i'm concerned) to convey the deets to more than a few. and although i've gotten a couple good ones, i'm still open to opinions.

so, last week i went to the yacht rock thing, which was totally a good time. as you may recall, i had trouble getting others to commit to going. i actually did run into someone i knew, but they bailed early. but that was fine, because it was fun, and i can make friends. to wit: i found myself in intermittent conversation with the dude standing next to me, in between films. he seemed cute enough, and nice enough, and i was happy with the whole situation. the screening ended, and it was still pretty early, so we continued chatting. we got a drink, and i met his friends, who also seemed pretty chilll, and fairly intelligent. after a while, i remember that it's a monday, and indicate that i need to be leaving. the friends have already left at this point. dude offers to walk me home, but i'm in good shape and it's apparent that it would be a significant detour for him. however, i score digits (in the form of a business card. yet another "hi, i'm old!" moment, but i'm used to it now. as an aside, dude works at ddb, which intrigued me, not in a gold-digging way, but because it further indicated his smarts.)

a couple days later, i shoot him an email reminding him of who i am and inviting him to grab a drink sometime soon. no reponse, until late that friday, when i get an email saying, "hi claire! blah blah blah, blah blah blah. blah blah. anyway, i'm seeing someone right now, i don't want to lead you on or anything. see you at bar x or bar y, or at the next yacht rock thing!"

lead me on? no, you only bought me a drink, talked to me for an hour, offered to walk me home, and gave me your number. totally MY BAD. i'm not pissed, it's more just...weird. even if he thought we were just 'bar buddies', you'd think he would have alluded to his situation at some point.

more to the point: why is it that, even when i'm engaging in the most innocuous and straightforward dating rituals, something still goes horribly awry? maybe i should go ahead and send in that app for the convent. they probably can't go after me for my student loans in there, anyway.

shoot me.

2006-07-12T14:55:00.000-05:00

statements which have come out of professor lousin's mouth today:

"i just ate a tuna sandwich and now i'm burping."
"the tickler must be conspicuous."
"don't look at me like that."

she just spent, like, 15 minutes on a completely incomprehensible anecdote. and that's not blogzaggeration, i kept my eyes on the clock. whatever, though. she IS really erudite, and it clearly makes her so happy to share her stories, and occasionally they are actually interesting. but man! today, she's pulled out the big guns, and my ADD is far too advanced for this shit. it doesn't help that i have a million things to do for work which i have to work on as soon as i get home (my multitasking abilities do have their limits) , and stealthily, in order to keep my date with loren for martini night. i can't cancel on her, either, because the girl deserves a drink: she was on the train behind the train that caught on fire yesterday! (btw, thanks again to those who texted, called, etc.: i was not, in fact, on the blue line at all yesterday, and am thus ok.)

yacht rock at the bottle was awesome. sort of like a trekkie convention for hipsters. it was nice to hear everybody else laugh when i laughed (or at least most of the time...those who know me well know my tendency to pre-emptively giggle when i know something good is coming up. ditto for anticipatory "woo"s at shows.) the place was totally packed, more packed than anything i've seen there since stars. or franz ferdinand. (and yes, this is the empty bottle we're talking about. so that's pretty fucking crowded.) the q-and-a was not that revelatory. the yacht rock dudes seemed so stunned, and stoked, by the crowd (and also kinda drunk) such that they were not that silver-tongued. EXCEPT: apparently the world premiere of yacht rock 11 is ALSO going to be in chicago! in september! at either darkroom or sonotheque, i can't remember. one of those eurotrash nouveau ukie village clubs. meaning, like, half a mile from where i live. chicago is officially the coolest place to be this year. also, hollywood steve looks really fragile in real life.

fuck you, loggins!

2006-07-10T20:32:00.000-05:00

this was such a monday. presaged by insomnia redux 3000, work was good but led to a brutally wifi-less 3-hour sales class. which is always about 1/3 uniform commercial code, 2/3 random meandering anecdotes and old lady mock-rants. seriously, it's like being held captive by your grandparents and their vacation slides. for 3 hours, twice a week. anyway. it looks like no one else can go to the yacht rock extravaganza tonight (something about "work" and "sleep"), but if everyone else wants to act like bank tellers,* that's fine. after hearing/hearing about TOTO not once, but twice today (jewel osco and the unfortunately yacht rock-unschooled nick2, respectively), i know where i have to be.

* (just kidding! i love you and am just making excuses for my own inability to make responsible choices. sort of.)

initial thoughts

2006-07-06T23:22:00.000-05:00

karma is a bitch. i understand, and sorta even think, he didn't believe he didn't do anything "wrong." BUT STILL. never have i had more faith, or interest in, admiralty law.

YES.

so sleater-kinney is near-terminally dormant. i had just already been re-appreciating "one beat" of late (yeah really, stef, except for the song with the horns). "faraway" made me cry the first several, or dozen, times i heard it, and the reaction isn't so different these days either. (even mid-run. and while we're at it, that album is so good for endorphins, if not as great as the insistent throwdown of "the obliterati" (already, and still, my vote for album of the year).) and while i ultimately internalized "the woods" as "flawed but intriguing transition album," i know it's all for the best. the best elegy, or at least the one most nearly aligned with my own opinions, can be found here . (dude has been pretty on fire lately, especially with his breakdown of the "reasonable doubt" concert, and a few weeks before that, an excellent exposition re: atmosphere , although, i have to accede to the zen master in the one case, even if i haven't heard the album.) whatever your opinion, you have to respect. they certainly transcended the typical riot-grrl footnote.