>> I finished that paper this morning; ended up writing it on the various concepts of speech / monologue / dialogue in John Osborne's Look Back In Anger. It turned out readable and basically intelligent, I think, and my teacher accepted it with absolutely no drama. I don't know how badly my grade will suffer for turning it in so late, but Lord knows that whatever happens I deserve it.

And then, this afternoon I begged out of my internship two hours early (it was a slow day anyway) in order to come home and start in on the next paper, for Brit Lit II, which is due tomorrow. I suspect I'll be writing it about some Keats poem or another, but in order to do that, I'll need to re-read the Keats poems. So that's first on tonight's agenda. Next comes actually writing the paper; then, reading and workshopping three short-stories for Fiction Workshop; then actually reading the current assignment (gasp! You mean, do something before it's due?) in Brit Lit. And if I finish all of that without passing out / killing myself / etc. -- a highly unlikely event, but theoretically possible -- I can go back and catch up on some of the readings I've skipped so far throughout the semester. Of course, not until I finish washing my dishes. In fact, perhaps I'll do that right now.

Just a momentary two-hour release from my routine makes all the difference in the world; I'm miles away from the rather paranoiac headspace I was occupying last night, and am actually ready to work. Let's see if I can actually make something happen, eh?

>> This entry was supposed to start off with "I don't know how I let it get this way" -- I have a backlog of work that threatens to well and truly destroy my grades for this semester (including that paper I mentioned for Modern British Drama -- I still haven't done it, and I have the class tomorrow), a pile of personal crap that needs sorting out, a strangely persistent exhaustion, horrendously mangled finances, and a general dissatisfaction with most of my life as it currently stands. But of course I know how I let it get this way: It's because I am fucking lazy. I am a fucking lazy-ass bastard who never does shit when he should.

I need a hundred days off. To start with. Give me one hundred days, Lord. Or hell, just one.

>> I bought Tori Amos' Scarlet's Walk today, without a very clear reason to do so. Tori's been one of my longest-standing musical loves; I was a little namby-pamby sissy Lilith Fair kind of boy in the mid-90s (Alanis Morissette was the first concert I ever went to of my own volition; Tori was the second). To this day I still contend that her first four albums are great, great, great (in fact, I think each one is better than the next). Then came To Venus And Back, a startlingly mediocre affair which kind of shocked me out of my affection for her. Strange Little Girls has its (very) strong moments, but I haven't given it enough of a chance to get a hold of me yet; therefore, I'm not quite sure why I was so excited about this album. Maybe it was the high concept; sometimes I'm a sucker for such things.

In any event, I bought it. I even bought the special edition with the three-video DVD. It was only $13.99 at Circuit City, where I went to buy new headphones for the Pod -- more on them later -- as opposed to $21 or $22 at Tower and Virgin, so hey. The special-edition package, as it turns out, also includes the following things:

• A sheet of stickers (drawn by Amos herself? I don't know);
• A road-map of "Scarlet's walk," the journey across America the album supposedly represents;
• The complete lyrics on the back of said map;
• Eighteen "Polaroid photos" of Amos in various anonymous American locales;
• A little silver tiger charm, which I caught the briefest of glimpses of at the bottom of the box before inspecting other parts of the package. I believe he sadly fell out and is lost to me on one downtown 6 train or another, because I couldn't find him when I got home.

Unfortunately, I can't conclusively state that the album deserves all of these accoutrements. The vast majority of the songs so far (and as I type this, I'm listening to "Taxi Ride," the fourteenth track of eighteen) blend together and sound damnably the same. If you thought "A Sorta Fairytale" was boring (as I initially did), in the context of the album it's a refreshingly unique song and one of the few obvious singles. High points do break the surface, but I feel they're a bit like hills on the prairie -- remarkable for their mediocre altitude in the midst of so much flatness. Time may lead me to revise this verdict; I will admit, I did hate From The Choirgirl Hotel when it came out. But I also smelled the piddling stink of Boredom all over From Venus And Back, and that album has not appreciated in my view, even after a recent revisit.

So I guess my point is, approach it with caution. It's good, but it ain't great. Amos isn't "back" yet, and I wonder if she ever will be.

However... speaking of great, I read The Crying Of Lot 49 today and damn. Damn damn DAMN. I guess there was a reason so many people found postmodernism appealing, eh? I think I may well re-read it in the next few days and see what I can learn from it.

>> Tom's absurdly pedantic entry about his iPod is actually something I've been meaning to write for a long time, to be very honest, so go read his and save me some typing and repetitive-stress injury. God I am such a fucking dork. Lord knows I probably will, actually, expound on my particular iPod habits at a later date.

In related news, I had a moment of sobering horror this morning when I thought my iPod was on the fritz -- I wasn't getting the left stereo channel in my headphones and it would pop in only when I held ol' Adam at certain angles. Thankfully I have just diagnosed this as a headphone problem with the aid of Jeremy's big honkin' headset... the Pod's OK but my headphones will have to be replaced, which is a shame because they were fucking great. Sigh.

Oh, and I almost forgot: There are two new songs in the MP3 section. I'm sorry I took so long between updates; they'll probably be coming harder and faster soon so go now while you can.

>> Grrrrrrr. I'm not just lazy, dear readers, though I am certainly that. But no; I haven't been posting because Dreamhost's been having repeated CGI issues which are hopefully now fixed; CGI issues that derailed everything Movable Type-related on my server (so if you couldn't comment this weekend, that was why).

I wanted to post this weekend, but I couldn't; and now, the unique emotional impulses that made me want to write have vaporized, ground down into nothing terribly inspiring by the simple passage of time. Which is just a poofy way of saying I lost interest.

So instead, all I can really blog are two bits of music news -- about New Order's forthcoming box set, which boasts an excellent tracklisting, and Nick Cave's next album (which was announced weeks ago, but I never blogged it), Nocturama. Which is a fairly ridiculous title, methinks, but I'm not Mr. Cave now am I. Anyway, I hope these bits of news please you.

Oh yeah, and I talked to Elton John on the phone today. But there's not really a story there.

>> This was supposed to be the weekend when I didn't leave my dorm. That was the grand ambition: to just stay in one place for forty-eight hours, being completely indolent and undertaking no task more odious and taxing then, say, reading some books, or tinkering pleasantly with the site.

Of course, then I blew off that paper, so it's got to get done at some point in the very near future. And yesterday afternoon my sister called me at the last minute and exhorted me to come take care of her dog tonight. So now I have to haul myself ninety-three blocks uptown to feed the li'l critter and allow it to take the airs, sleep in a bed that is not my own, feed/walk it one more time, and haul myself another ninety-three blocks downtown tomorrow morning. As far as tasks go, it's not exactly a Herculean labor, but it is quite frustrating how firmly it cuts into my weekend of planned domesticity.

(My newfound yearning for the domestic urge is a whole other post.)

So I suppose this morning/afternoon is gonna have to suffice as my entire Period Of Rest for the next couple of weeks. Which of course places undue emphasis on it and makes it Not Restful At All. Whatever. I was gonna be doing laundry anyway (which is a fucking ripoff -- $1.50 per machine in this dorm, and I've got a lot of laundry to do! -- but I digress). Off to face the verdict of productivity.

Update, 2:40 PM ET: So far it's cost me $9 to do two loads of laundry, and they're not even finished yet. Two of the machines haven't worked. But of course, only after I paid for them. Thunderclouds are churning around my head, let me tell you... (I did have a bacon cheeseburger for lunch, which was nice. Though it wasn't very good. God damn this entry is quickly turning very pedantic and stupid. Oh yeah, this is a weblog. Go figure.)

>> Was supposed to get up at 7 this morning. Got up at 8. Was supposed to write a five-page paper for Modern British Drama this morning and turn it in before going to work. Didn't.

Now it'll be late, which doesn't trouble me much, though I'm hoping I can get into the English Department building tomorrow to leave it in my professor's mailbox... if not, well, le sigh. I'm not gonna weep about it.

I'm getting a little sick of being so cavalier about school, but it's still the easiest route.

Last night I dreamt about vampires.

>> This weblog is two years old today, and I'd almost forgotten until last night. Perhaps more importantly, I've been out to my friends and the larger world for one year today as well.

I've no idea how to mark this occasion, but I suspect it'll be by going to class, going to my internship, doing some grocery shopping, studying for a midterm, and collapsing into bed around 9:30. If only I had the time for self-reflection.

>> The fucking bank raised my credit limit. I celebrated, of course, by abusing it.

I picked up the brand-new two-disc Best Of Bowie (I know full well that I'll be buying his entire catalogue eventually, but this'll tide me over, since that's a long-term project. And besides, there are some non-album singles on here) and Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman which I can't believe I didn't own, as well as the 2-disc Rocky Horror Picture Show DVD which is out of print, but was only $16.99 at J&R Music World downtown. So, ah, huzzah for conspicuous spending that I can't afford. The other day, while picking up textbooks, I also grabbed the hardcover of Zadie Smith's new one, The Autograph Man, which I'm hoping is good -- it'll be a while before I can get to it, though. I've got a lot of reading in my future. (To track it, visit my All Consuming page, which I blew some dust off of tonight and will be revisiting throughout the week until my To-Do and Have-Done lists are accurate).

It's been a day of self-indulgence on the whole... I gave both of my classes this afternoon a miss, which was probably a mistake but which I think I really needed to do for mental-health reasons. I should be able to squeeze my way through the rest of the week without cracking; I've consecrated this weekend to R&R as well, having pledged to not leave my dorm room without a damn good reason. (A haircut might be one of them -- the scruff on the back of my neck is starting to curl up. Don't say the "m" word. Don't.)

There's more to say but it'll come later.

>> Bleagh. I'm proud of myself for having the energy to expand the Bowie post, if only sparsely. When I got home from work today I set in on an ambitious room-cleaning/organizing spree that bore only incomplete fruit, as I soon found myself completely absorbed by sadly futile attempts to get my Dreamhost e-mail accounts working after they crapped out (for the second time in a month) without explanation this morning. My failure to rectify the situation demoralized me horribly, and now I'm sitting here with dirty dishes to do and assignments to read and sleep weighing very very heavily on my eyes. And it's only just after 9:00.

So of course, now I don't have the energy to write about some truly profound things I was thinking about today, and it's all because I allowed one simple fucking problem to take over my entire worldview.

The shortened version: I'm beginning to realize that my commitment to writing and literature is perhaps a bit stronger than I thought it was, and I'm plotting -- at this moment, anyway -- to consecrate the next few months to reading and writing. Constantly. Where this leaves me in terms of extracurricular pursuits, such as my internship, I'm not sure; but all I know is that the schedule I'm keeping now prevents me from investing time into my reading & writing both for school and myself, and I don't think I want to allow that to continue.

So I say now, anyway. Go to the kitchen and get a few grains of salt.

>> ...said David Bowie in the short break between "China Girl" and "5:15 The Angels Have Gone." "Once," he said, "I was playing a show in Akron, and from the stage I said 'Akron, it's great to be here!' But that was a lie... OK, next song!"

I've decided that Bowie is to my generation what Frank Sinatra was to the generation before: the one thing in music that your parents got right. Like Sinatra, he's built up enough of a canon that he can play a two-hour show without a single song seeming unnecessary, or undeserving of the company it keeps; like Sinatra, he has an inimitable voice that remains powerful years after the heyday of his popularity; and like Sinatra, he is quite simply Cool. He could very truly wear a paper bag on his head and a tarp around his waist and it would be Fucking Bad Ass.

He's an amazing performer -- striking poses, cracking wise, taking the time to personally stare into the eyes of, wave to, or grin for every single member of a 3,000-person audience (One of my favorite bits of stage business: near the beginning of the show, while introducing his band members, he turned to the audience, held out his mic, and said "And what's your name?" Everyone in the crowd bellowed their respective handles and Bowie simply absorbed them, nodding his assent and turning to his drummer to say "You got the ones that I missed, right?"). He absolutely sold every single song from a vocal and performative standpoint. My only regret about a few of the renditions were that they were too short -- "Rebel Rebel" got a sparse new handclap-driven arrangement that sounded absolutely spectacular, but it ended after only two choruses.

All in all, however, it was easily amongst the finest rock 'n' roll shows I have ever attended, and it excited and satisfied me in ways that only sound, lights, and pumping blood can describe, not words. Even after depressingly pedestrian experiences like the Underworld show, which remind me that live music is grounded in sad old dirty reality, I still expect magic from all the concerts I attend, and if I don't get it, I become quite disappointed. Bowie had magic to spare, and God bless him for it.

So. Setlist for David Bowie at the Beacon Theatre, New York City, October 20th 2002 (that should take care of the search engines; unless, of course, one types "set-list", in which case that should take care of the search engines):

• "Sunday"
• "Cactus"
• "Breaking Glass"
• "Fame"
• "Ashes To Ashes"
• "Slip Away"
• "China Girl"
• "5:15 The Angels Have Gone"
• "Starman"
• "Absolute Beginners"
• "I've Been Waiting For You"
• "Afraid"
• "Fashion"
• "Be My Wife"
• "Sound And Vision"
• "Rebel Rebel"
• "I'm Afraid Of Americans"
• "Life On Mars?"
• "Heroes"
• "Heathen (The Rays)"

Encore:

• "White Light / White Heat"
• "Let's Dance"
• "Ziggy Stardust"

(Before the show, by the by, I dined and cavorted with the lovely, charming, and highly entertaining Fiona, Megan, and Jen. Thank you for your charming company, ladies; we should do it again sometime.)

>> I just want to stop moving for a while. Is that too much to ask?

>> Heh. I suck.

The weblog vanished not because I was having some kind of over-dramatic hissy-fit, but because I have Movable Type set to display the last ten days of posts. And I didn't post for ten days. Voila.

I don't really want to spend a lot of time addressing the fact that I haven't posted for ten days... all I have to say about it is that I have been absolutely exhausted by the last three weeks of my life, and this blog has slipped to a startlingly low rung on the priority ladder. As I think I said before, this is my first brush with a truly packed, full schedule, and it's killing me. I'm so not ready for it. But I'm sticking it out for as long as I can.

I shall only describe one of the many notable events of my recent life: last night, Erin and I went to see Underworld at Hammerstein (I finally managed to sell my tickets the day before to a girl in my fiction workshop -- also, coincidentally, named Erin. Cray-zay). The show was really pretty great; however, we had to leave three-quarters of the way in, because Erin was about to die. I have never been to a concert as smoke-filled as this one. I would say about eighty or eighty-five percent of the audience was smoking, and the air was simply becoming untenable. For Erin, who's much shorter than I and is therefore down in the thickest part of the crowd, it actually became impossible to breathe properly; and despite evacuating first to the extreme side of the crowd, and then the back of the venue, it was just too unhealthy a place to be in. We continued evacuating to the McDonald's across Eighth Avenue, where water & french fries nursed her back to health (For the record, if anyone was at the show, let me know what we missed setlist-wise... we left during "Dirty Epic").

So let me take this opportunity to hop onto a soapbox. I know the little tin Puritan has railed against all kinds of fun things here on this site, but please: if any of you are smokers who regularly attend concerts, next time, think twice about lighting up. In a concert, moreso than in any other social gathering/event, you're completely at the mercy of the people around you, especially if the venue's packed and the crowd is crushed. Have some consideration for the people around you who can't breathe, and who can't escape your smoke.

I'm sure you're convinced. All I know is that I saw one of my best friends made really sick and disappointed to miss the show last night, and that makes me sad and angry.

(Though again, the show last night was great -- they opened with "Mmm Skyscraper I Love You," then onto "Cowgirl" with a bit of "Rez" at the end and "Two Months Off," "Dinosaur Adventure 3D," "Twist," "King Of Snake" which was particularly magnificent, and into "Dirty Epic," at which point we had to go. Sigh.)

And now I'm going to have a nice good old-fashioned rest for a while, which I haven't had for a long, long time. Though of course later tonight I'm going out to meet Josh, and tomorrow night I'm going with Jen, Megan, and Fiona (of the much-missed So Much Modern Time) to dinner and Bowie @ The Beacon. You have no idea how pleased I am about this.

More later?

>> Interesting MeFi thread on the new Westin in Times Square (which I only recently became aware of, when I started working in midtown) and NYC architecture in general. I posted my first MeFi comment in a year, so that's gotta be something...

My tastes in architecture aren't too refined, I must say. I'm easily seduced by glass and steel. I also rarely look to things with any kind of historically-appraising eye, and tend to appreciate them in the moment... so, for the moment, I rather like the Westin, but in ten years, I might be pleading for them to tear it down. I should make a note for the future.

>> ...means everything. Happy birthday, Gavin Friday! Here's to many many more. And a new album. ;-D

>> I'm still exhausted, and I'm nowhere near a point at which I can rest. I still have to write a paper for Brit Lit II, and I really, really don't want to. I'm toying with the idea of blowing it off and/or turning it in late, but it looks like it's about 20% of my grade, which is a chunk I'm not quite prepared to piss away. In any event, it's due tomorrow at 11 A.M., so it's got to get done either tonight or tomorrow morning. It would also help if I had decided what it would be about (we were actually supposed to do that last week in a short written assignment to our recitation-section leader, but I didn't do that, either). I suspect I'll either go for Gulliver's Travels or Rape Of The Lock, since they're the only two things we've read for that class that are even remotely compelling... God, how I loathe that class. It's the only one I'm enrolled in this semester that I hate. Why, why, why do I have to trudge through this "canonical" bullshit? I mean, I very much understand the value of reading the canon... but sometimes, the canon sucks!

I'm digressing pretty mightily and broaching a topic which I have neither the wit nor intelligence to discuss properly right now, so I'm gonna let it lie.

The internship continues apace; I now know more about the music industry than I probably ever really wanted to (see this post's subject line). That's a lie, but you get the idea. It ain't all sunshine. It continues to give me all kinds of "I've got to be doing this wrong, everyone at this office must hate me" stress, but what can you do? I'll sink into it eventually, I hope...

Anyway. The point is, I'm exhausted, and I have no chance of getting any rest any time soon. This weekend was amazing in a lot of ways, but irritating in many others -- namely, in that it didn't give me any time to recuperate from the strenuous week I'd just passed through, and now I'm on to another week which looks even more exasperating. Welcome to the working week, I guess. This is the first brush I've had in my lifetime with the concept of a truly full schedule, and it's breaking me down much faster than I thought it would. I'm such a spoiled brat.

And I know how profoundly uninteresting all of this must be to my weblog readers, what few of them remain. I used to have an audience, but then, I also used to write a weblog worth reading. All things must pass.

>> A piece on The Strokes in the New York Times magazine (free registration req'd) that actually manages to say something interesting:

The Strokes, strangely, seemed to become, beyond a downtown band, a neighborhood band, their single ''Last Nite'' on all the jukeboxes of the best bars, and the band members themselves huddled together in the backs of the East Village nightspots where everyone was suddenly spending too much time. ''Is This It'' made the midlist of the Billboard charts and simply refused to leave (it has gone gold and is still selling), and there is this sense, immeasurable but palpable, that the album has become the post-9/11 soundtrack for a certain cohort of the city's youthful -- from, say, those bored with their Kaplan SAT preps to those wondering whether it's really such a good idea to get a place on the edge of Williamsburg with the old college roommates.

And if these considerations strike you as small and altogether beside the point in the shadow of Recent Historical Events -- that is to say, if you think these kids should be made to sit down and listen carefully to ''The Rising''- you have failed to understand not only the sense of possibility and transcendence at the heart of any fresh rock song played and sung by someone sort of like you. (These kids will never love Springsteen, because he is not theirs to love.) You have also failed to understand the future-tense myopia -- the incessant, agitated attention paid to the becoming Self -- that fills the days and more vividly the nights of New York's restless young, and makes the city the place it is. (Emphasis mine)

Back about your business, then. I've got a lot more to cram into this weekend before I can tell you about what happened in it.

>> Once again, I'm reduced to an itemized list to describe what's going on in my life:

• Internship continues along swimmingly -- I continue to get stressed out over everything and become utterly convinced that I'm doing everything wrong, but they apparently like me anyway. In the last few days I've done all kinds of shockingly interesting things there that I really don't have any right to tell you about here, sadly. Suffice it to say that it's really fucking cool. And out of nowhere yesterday, they paid me. (!!!)
  
  
• I'm going to see David Bowie at the Beacon Theatre on October 20th. I have the single shittiest seat in the entire theatre (Top balcony, back row, against the right wall), but I'm finally seeing him perform live. I can cross #1 off the List Of Artists I Must See Live Before I Die Or I Will Kill Myself (yes, that's what the list is called, and yes, the ha-ha contradiction is intentional). Score!
  
  
• I'm dogsitting for my sister AGAIN, so I'll be hard to get a hold of for those who want to talk to me. The cell phone is always your best bet. And I also probably won't be updating too too much.
  
  
• Paul is in town, and today, we shall rock. (Last night we rocked Ruby Foo's on the Upper West Side pretty damn hard... uhhhh God such good desserts.)

Again, ta for now.

>> This'll teach me to read my e-mail more carefully -- Modern British Drama was cancelled this morning, and I've had the e-mail telling me so since Monday night. I could've slept for at least two more hours. Aaaargh. At least I bought a really tasty muffin for breakfast while I was up on campus, and this is the last day of my unlimited subway card, so it didn't cost me anything...

So. Things I've done since the last time I blogged:

• Had a fascinating conversation with Simon about music, how we listen to it, and why I hate Bjork's Vespertine. I tried to make a grand theoretical point about it, but it slowly dawned on me that I just hate the sounds of that record -- harps, glockenspiels, etc., all those irritating chimey noises just piss me off. Give me a thud, a hum, and a wail anytime. However, as a result of this conversation, I was inspired to make a mix CD for Simon which I consider a minor masterpiece. Small achievements are nice sometimes.
  
  
• Had an X-Men dream. I was Colossus, and it kicked ass. (You'd think I'd dream being a cooler character than Colossus, but trust me, I had a blast.)
  
  
• Had my first day as an intern at MCT / Bold, Moby's management company. Spent three-and-a-half of five hours entering Moby's various licensing requests into a database (no, I will not tell you who's licensing his stuff, and no, I will not tell you how much he gets. The vast majority of the requests never actually get produced anyway), then spent an hour filing them. The rest of my time was spent labelling CD-Rs and suchlike. I go back today. I'm reasonably sure they probably think I'm a psychopath, since I was so quiet and seemingly sensitive and made only the most perfunctory of conversation... I was nervous! Erin says they told her I was great (since I finished the huge stack of requests), but they would tell her that, I'm her friend and they know it. Anyway, I'm totally worried that I entered the licensing requests all wrong anyway. Grrr. Wish me luck in my second day; hopefully they'll give me something nice and clerical to do, instead of things that seemingly alter the state of their business...
  
  
• Saw Red Dragon at a preview screening. It was basically just OK; I'd give it a B- and it would probably depreciate on future viewings. Extraordinarily well-written and well-acted EXCEPT for anything which had anything to do with the Red Dragon character himself, who was a big walking cliche (and was hammed up by Ralph Fiennes). Brett Ratner sadly goes for most of the classic overused thriller tropes, and Danny Elfman's score is more heavy-handed than a boxer with a roll of quarters in his gloves. But Edward Norton and Anthony Hopkins are both classy to the max, and it is reasonably involving, so give it a go if you're not paying too much in ticket price.

Apologies for not blogging, but it's been a busy time (in addition to the above, I had classes, homework, social gatherings, a debacle involving two and a half pounds of beef, failed movie outings, and more). I suspect I won't blog tonight or tomorrow either, since I'm already exhausted and have miles of schoolwork to do before I sleep... ta for now.