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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

monica eng, you are my hero.

things and stuff

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

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

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

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

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?