Rare DCD Track for Download

If you’re not already signed up for Brendan Perry’s newsletter, you should be. In addition to periodic updates on what Brendan is doing and news on the release date for his upcoming album (pending… always pending…) sometimes he also sends out links to rare or unreleased tracks from Dead Can Dance. These are always happy surprises in my inbox, and his is one of the few newsletters I bother to open and/or read.

Here are the details on his latest edition/download:

‘A Means of Escape’ was the first professional studio recording by Dead Can Dance featuring the original line-up of Brendan Perry (Vocals & Electric Guitar), Lisa Gerrard (Pearl Syncussion), Paul Erikson (Bass Guitar) and Simon Monroe (Drums).

Recorded in early 1982 by the Australian producer, Chris Thompson at Richmond Recorders, Melbourne, it captures the early Joy Division inspired wall of sound that became DCD’s sonic trademark in the early eighties.

The file is a high quality mp3 – 320kbps

Check out his website here to subscribe.

Product Whoring – Bare Escentuals Buxom Lips

Sephora: Bare Escentuals Buxom Lips: Lip Plumpers.

I got a free tube of this in “Claire” from Sephora, with a gift set I purchased the other day. I am not one for lip plumpers usually – my mouth is small and lip plumpers just make me look like I have a small mouth that someone  smacked. Also, they have a tendency to burn and make the skin around my lips irritated.

Basically they make me feel like I’ve just spread some noxious toxic wasted on my face, and am courting some kind of skin disaster. Not really what I think of as comfortable and/or appealing. (I am looking at you, Too Faced Lip Injection Extreme.) But since I got this full-size sample I thought I would try it once and see if I liked it.

I LURVE it. It’s a pretty shiny neutral color, and it’s glittery without making you feel like a kindgergartener did a project on your face. It’s tingly, but not painful; it feels (and tastes) minty-fresh, actually. And at $18 it seems downright reasonable, compared to some of the products out there.  So I am officially product-whoring for it, it’s pretty awesometastic.

Greek-o-rama Extravaganza

Cooked Greek for this week’s supper club. I swear, next time it’s my turn I am making a meatloaf and some frozen peas. This dinner was expensive and fucking time consuming, though it was apparently also delicious. For a few of you who were there and wanted the recipes (all ganked from epicurious.com) here they are:

Grilled Haloumi Cheese and Lemon

Turned on to this grill-able Haloumi cheese by a few of my Twitter friends, this appetizer was a huge hit. Had to search a bit, but finally found the cheese at Jay’s on Grand. Was supposed to grill it outside, but it seemed to work well on a ridged pan over my gas stove.

Orzo, Feta, and Tomato Salad with Marjoram Vinaigrette

It’s two days later and I am still trying to finish off this orzo dish. It makes a ton, is all I am saying. It’s quite delicious cold, and seems like it would be a great summertime or picnic lunch. The Dijon mustard and marjoram really added to the vinagrette, and it was super, super tasty.

Lamb Souvlaki with Yogurt-Garlic Sauce

I had never cooked lamb before, and don’t know if I will again. I thought this recipe was tasty, but with the amount of lamb they call for, the souvlaki seemed very light on meat, to me. At $13/lb I understand why they don’t call for more, but I wonder if some beef might not have been just as tasty. The yogurt garlic sauce, on the other hand, was ten kinds of the bomb. I really don’t like yogurt, but the combo of the Greek-style yogurt, pureed cucumber and the lemon juice made for a really tasty, tart  dressing. Loved it.

Baklava

And last but certainly not to be overlooked was the baklava. I see why I only make this every few years, because holy shit, that’s a lot of work. Boiling the syrup myself really let me taste the individual flavors though, and the taste of the orange seemed to come through much more strongly than it would have with a pre-made baklava. But seriously, unless you have a few hours to devote (and a pretty large party, this makes a shitton of baklava) I would almost recommend buying it instead. I would also recommend asking your friends if any of them are allergic to almonds, prior to serving this dish. (Not saying anything occurred, just… sorry about your tongue.) Also, I totally chopped the nuts in the food processor. Totally.

Anyway, I would recommend all of these dishes, they were super tasty, if time consuming. I am still the laziest cook in the universe though. Next time = meatloaf.

This is Not a Guest

I know that some of you will think I have a guest blogger posting here, but despite that risk I must inform you that I have been having a really great weekend. Friday was fun, and then I had an epic WIN day yesterday, with chilled-out napping, casual lunching, productive shopping and orgasmic driving-around weather. Top the whole thing off with a super-fun night out of shows and drinking, and a few hours of laughing as hard as I’ve laughed in a long time. I even spent about an hour in the middle of the night trying to explain to someone else why their negative worldview and scorn for humanity was so harmful to them —- and I wasn’t even struck dead by an irony-bolt or anything.

It was just all happy fun times, and I feel all relaxed and contentified now. I don’t know if it’s the good weather, or some kind of serotonin storm, but I am luxuriating in it while it lasts.*

Yay for the fleeting happy moments, from which we string together a life of fond reminiscences.

*It probably won’t withstand a trip to NoCo and my hateful, hateful family, so don’t worry, by this evening I am sure I will be back to myself again.

Fuck You, Penguin: Moles have comically low expectations of themselves

Fuck You, Penguin: Moles have comically low expectations of themselves.

For some reason FYP is cracking me up more than usual today. Perhaps because I hate stupid happy people so much.

I Want This Sign for CBs’ Bathroom

see more Engrish

QOTD, if not the year so far.

“Nobody rings the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) to get their sick leave benefits because they can’t make it to work when they are feeling a little bit sadomasochistic.”

http://www.thelocal.se/19106/20090427/

Facebook Manners and You

Facebook Manners And You

How to properly use the Electronic Friendship Generator! (thanks DaveWWT)

Epic Handbag Adventures

Only now am I able to discuss with a reasonable level of calm the HORROR, the TRAGEDY, the ABSOLUTE CALAMITY which befell me last weekend. While returning to my humble abode on Friday night, in no slight state of inebriation, I chanced to discover that my BAG, my FAVORITE GOING OUT BAG had sustained an injury most grievous. Namely: one of the straps was broken loose of its mooring, and flapping most ineffectually in the chill night air.

This bag and I have a history dating at least 10 years, and possible 11. Purchased at the Esprit store in Amsterdam in 1998 or 1999, it was one of the first “expensive” bag purchases of my (at that time young) life. I can’t remember what I paid for it, and even if I did it would have been in guilders and the price wouldn’t make any sense now since the debut of the Euro, but however much it was, it was purchased at full price (!) and I remember that it made me a little nervous to be spending that much money at the time, and I hid the receipt from my boyfriend. My friends in Amsterdam teased me constantly for my grandma-handbag fetish, but when I saw this little black number sitting on a shelf I knew it had to be mine.

Numerous are its charms, and hidden features, but a few of the highlights are:

• It is black. This is key for any bag I am to carry long-term.
• It is leather, not some icky-sticky fabric.
• The sides are hard, not soft, carefully protecting all my delicate goods within
• The top has a most cunning silver clasp, which snaps closed with a satisfyingly deep click
• The top of the bag closes entirely, preventing things falling out, or falling in
• It is deceptively small and almost Mary Poppins-esque in its ability to hold things. I have had a full night’s load of stuff in it and still found room to add my gloves, a scarf and paperback book that a friend gave me. It’s much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
• At this point it’s well-worn and loved, so I don’t mind taking it out to bars and getting drinks spilled on it and whatnot
• It has the perfect strap length, enabling it to be held loosely in the hand (to attract purse-snatchers, if one is of a mood to do that) or over the shoulder, with the bag fitting closely under one’s upper arm (not bouncing annoyingly against one’s hip) This also is perfect for being out at bars, because it frees up one’s hands to hold a drink and gently prod malingerers out of one’s way, but it doesn’t leave your bag dangling so low down that it is vulnerable to pick-pockets and getting carelessly jostled/caught on barstools.
• It is most stylish and classically granny-ish, still as delightfully in fashion today as it was the day I bought it

In short, it’s a perfect fucking bag. So I am going to have to get that strap fixed. I’ve heard there’s a place on Big Bend that can do that, but by all means if you have a suggestion for a good bag-fixer person, please let me know.

Observe how epic, and the sadly broken strappage.

I have a replacement bag pinch-hitting for my fave bag, but even though it’s of a similar size/shape it’s fabric (gross if you spill something on it) with only short/hand-held handles and it only snaps closed on the top, which means things can fall in and out of it. And  I have to carry that one out tonight. Boo.

Attempt at replacement bag 1. Wrong color, good length straps, but too large with unwieldy top-flap.

Attempt at replacement bag 2. Good color, good size, but fabric, with odd length handles and only a snap closure on top.

In other news, I bought two new dresses, a new top and two new pairs of sandals today. I am having the hardest goddamn time finding shoes right now, since I need shoes that are loose enough to not squeeze the broken part of my left foot. That usually equals something like a slingback. However slingbacks are exactly what you don’t want to wear when you have plantar fasciitis, like I do in my right foot. For that I need a closed-back shoe with a slightly elevated heel. But that puts too much stress on the broken foot, and it also doesn’t help my right knee, which is all jacked up from walking funny to accommodate the left foot. See how ridiculous this gets? I need arch support on the right, which aggravates the left, and I basically only feel totally comfortable when I am barefoot. And to top all that off, I would actually like to have shoes the are, you know, cute. Pretty much impossible. So  you can imagine my delight at  finding two new pairs of sandals today which I think will actually be comfortable on both sides of my fucked-up lower extremities. And I debated buying both pairs, and then I realized how hard it was to find anything that suits my weird-ass needs, and totally bought both. Fuck it.

Totally random, but this is the only pretty thing in my garden at the moment, so you’re getting  a picture of it.

Bleeding Hearts. Glad they survived the snow/frost.

Twitter Cops

Twitter Cops

The Clearing

The Clearing

Originally uploaded by Erin_T

I adore this type of work. Any kind of landscape built in miniature and photographed to look life-size makes me feel like I am about three years old, and that all my daydreams are possible.

Any kind of forced-perspective, playing with scale and DOF work totally draws me in. I could look at this for an hour. Imaginary worlds – infinitely preferable to my own.

Go have a look at all of her work, some of the snowy scenes really remind me of creepy snowglobes.

Valentine’s Day, Someecards style

someecards.com | ecards for when you care enough to hit send | This is the perfect night to troll the city for undatable alcoholics.

A Dance Party Is Trouble

A Dance Party is Trouble

I would pay more money than makes any sense to have a copy of this sign. This is the best thing I ever saw.

Well, Wii Not?

So as I have been twittering incessantly, I recently decided I needed a Wii. Although I am not much of a video game enthusiast, Wiis looked cool, and not too video-gamey. And when I found out that Wiis had wifi and I could use one to get online and download classic Nintendo games, I was totally sold. Then came the issue of actually finding the damn thing. Who knew they were still so hard to lay hands on? After what seemed like an eternity (I think it was a week and a half) of deprivation, I finally found a game store on S. Grand that was getting a shipment in, and you bet I was standing right there as they checked that shipment in.  I got the basic Wii which comes with Wii sports, and I also bought a classic game controller for playing  – you guessed it – classic games, and a $20 card with which to purchase/download games. (The guy at the store made a good point that one shouldn’t store their CC# in the Wii console itself, in case the console is stolen.)

Despite sounding so stoned and out of it on the phone, the guys at the store were really very helpful and knowledgeable in person. Although when I went to leave they didn’t have any bags. Srsly. So I had to walk down S. Grand with a Wii under my arm, which doesn’t seem overly smart. The one guy did offer to walk me to my car, which offer I declined. But how did they not have any bags? They weren’t even like “Dude, we’re out of bags. Bummer.” They were like “Dude, do we have any bags?” “Dude, I don’t know. Maybe in the back somewhere?” Like I was the only person in there all day buying anything and then perversely needing a bag for my purchase?

Got it home and set it up, which was pretty painless. Plug some wires into the side of the TV, sticky-tape a sensor bar atop the TV, stick some AA batteries (included) in the remote control and you’re good to go. (Bonus feature = even when you’re playing with the classic controller, it’s plugged into the wireless wiimote, so you don’t have to be in close proximity to the console. Sitting in comfort on the couch while playing Mario, instead of huddling on the floor because my cord doesn’t stretch, is a new and luxurious concept. ) Getting the Wii to recognize my wireless internet was also simple and painless. Got online and downloaded Super Mario Bros. 3 and Donkey Kong Country. They have other, newer, games for download as well, but I wanted to play some of my old favorites first.

Now, I haven’t played Super Mario Bros. 3 in… let’s see… 16 years? Maybe 17. But when I played it, OMG how I played. For hours and hours without end. With fierce concentration and vicious fits of impotent, inappropriate fury when I couldn’t pass a level. I played the hell out of that game.  And turning it on and hearing that music was so bizarrely familiar. It was absolutely sick and wrong and scary how much of that game I remember after taking  a 15-year break from it. Where to jump, what to hit, what to look out for. I don’t know whether to be pleased with myself or ashamed of that kind of thing taking up valuable storage space in my brain all this time. It also gave me great waves of nostalgia for the people I was with, and that whole period of my life. I was 21 or 22 at the time I guess, and I don’t think that I could fathom the concept then that there was such a thing as “15 years later.” How could I? How could I imagine what would happen between then and now? That all of those things would be gone and other things take their place? That those people would go away, and new people would come, and then those people would go away, and new people would take their place too? The inexorable passage of time, I don’t think we humans can ever really grasp it. Staring at this thing that played such a strong supporting role in that pivotal time of my life, and it’s exactly the same and I am completely different – that’s a feeling I can’t quite put a name to. Not that I want to go back there. I don’t. Well—maybe only for a minute to whisper some things in my ear.

Anyway, Donkey Kong Country was the same way. Seeing the opening credits play brought back the time I used to obsessively play that game, with a different person, in a different place. And it dredged up all the emotions of that time and place and person, too. This time not angry and fierce and defiantly happy, but cautious and frightened and frozen. Playing that game wasn’t something I did to pass the time because I was young and broke and my friends and I didn’t have anywhere to go and anything to do. Playing that game was something I did because it was something to pass the time when I was too scared to go to sleep.

But old messy feelings floating to the surface or not, it was really fun to play those games again!

For one thing – they’re fun games! With cool music, and fun graphics. And I am good at them! And apparently I haven’t lost all my reflexes, for which I am grateful.

Also, while I am playing video games, you know what I am not doing? Thinking. I am not pontificating, I am reacting. My brain is turned off at the “worry” level, operating only on the “JUMP YOU MOTHERFUCKER- JUMP!” level. Do you know what that’s worth to me, to not think for a while? It’s definitely worth the price of a Wii.

The last reason it was fun is because I can happily contrast then and now. Now = comfortably sitting in my own home on my own couch as an independent adult, eating Cheez-its out of the box and answerable to pretty much no one. That’s infinitely preferable to sitting on the floor of my old BFs living room while his bitchy Mom kept her eagle eye on us, every so often telling us that she knew what we did when we were in his room with the door closed. (And for the record, yeah we TOTALLY did, all the time, and on the couch when you weren’t home too. Asshole.) And it’s preferable to being in the basement at my parents house at 2 a.m., counting down the minutes until I could move out of the country and away from all this mess already.  FSM  knows I hate to admit count my blessings, but my relative independence from any outside influences is one I will acknowledge.

I guess my point to all this is a rather trite one: that time marches on, and seeing things from the past that are perfectly preserved when you’ve changed so radically really drives that home. But then again, I would rather be the me  in my head I am now than the me I was in my head then. (Although I wouldn’t mind being the me I am in my head now in the 22-year-old body that I had back then, obviously.)

And for those of you wondering – yes, I can turn playing video games (and pretty much everything else) into an introspective exercise. The ways in which I can navel-gaze are legion, and they encompass everything with which I come in contact.

Death by Doyle

I am currently drowning in a sea of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle-related stories, both film and written word.

A few months ago my marvelous Tivo started recording a show on PBS each weekend. It was “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes and David Burke as Watson. The series began in the mid-1980′s, and was pretty well done for the small budget it must have had at the time.

Jeremy Brett is an insanely energetic and curiously appealing Holmes, really bringing the detective’s most Asperger’s-like traits to life. You don’t like him, you admire him, you adore him, you find him irritating, you can’t look away.

His thin, pale Holmes is so focused and yet so inter-personally flawed, so intelligent and cold, it’s wonderful to watch. His snobby, dismissive hand gestures and sneering attitude toward everything  he encounters had me transfixed. (My own particular weakness fondness  for emotionally-unavailable geniuses notwithstanding.) His self-pitied moaning about the ennui of his existence, which he needs both cocaine and morphine to enliven, aroused my empathy.

I found myself remembering the stories (sans cocaine/morphine somehow) from reading them when I was younger (the one with the asp who climbs down the rope and returns at the sound of whistle being a horrifying favorite) and being fascinated all over again.

And so I kept watching . It was always a lazy weekend treat to drowse in front of the TV listening to Holmes castigate poor Watson for his shortsighted dunderheadedness.

David Burke played an adorable Watson, too. He was so happy! So willing to be pleased and impressed by everything! He was never angry or sullen or jealous, only willing to help and ready to play Holme’s foil. Charming.

The series ends with Holmes death at Reichenbach Falls, and then picks up in 1986 with his resurrection for “The Return of Sherlock Holmes.” This time a new actor  (Edward Hardwicke) plays Watson, and I was prepared not to like him so much, because he didn’t seem as happy—but after a few episodes he seems to have picked up that naive joy so characteristic to perennial second-fiddle Watson.

I didn’t think about the series much, just enjoyed it when Tivo picked it up.

Then after Christmas I was in Borders and ran across this book “Arthur & George” by Julian Barnes. I’d read Barnes’ “England, England” many a year ago, and remembered liking it, and it was $4.99 hardback, so what the heck. I had trouble getting into it, the first quarter of the book explains in great disconnected detail the lives of two young boys— lives which have no common thread running between them—which made me wonder why I was supposed to care about either of them. The “Arthur” in the title is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Holmes series, and “George” was some son of a vicar no one ever heard of.

After a while it became more interesting, and in the end I was quite fascinated with the story. (No spoilers, but it’s a true-life tale of Doyle getting involved with a case of criminal injustice, which directly impacted the creation of the British Courts of Appeal. Let me know if you want to borrow it, it’s quite good.)  When I was done I  read the afterword. (Which, had it been the foreword would have made me much more interested in the book from the beginning) It said that all correspondence and newspaper articles quoted in the text were taken verbatim from the original stories/documents. Anyway, it was a great peek inside the mind of Doyle, and made me even more resolved to go get the collected Sherlock Holmes to re-read.

Books acquired Saturday (Dear Publisher: “Sherlock Holmes, The Complete Collected Stories and Novels, Volume 1″—  with the “Volume 1″ in teeeeeny-tiny type on the spine— is a ridiculous title. How each book “complete” if it’s one of a two-volume set? Luckily I noticed that the second copy of the book was smaller than the first and picked them both up, or I would have been mightily pissed when I got home.) And I’ve been happily devouring them ever since. Several things struck me:

1. How language evolves. “But Holmes! You can’t be serious!” I ejaculated. Seriously, Watson ejaculates at some point in almost every story.
   
2. How authors of that time period didn’t dumb-down their texts for their audiences. Liberal usage of $5 words and frequent un-translated German and French quotations show me that Sir Doyle expected a certain level of education from his audience, and that if they didn’t have it, they should reach up to his level of understanding, not expect him to shove his writing down to theirs.

I am now all caught up in this world of Victorian manners and language, which I think suited my personality much better than the era I was mistakenly born in. (Though I do quite approve of all the sanitation and antibiotics we have, don’t get me wrong.) Still only 1/3 of the way through Volume I and a whole Volume II to go after that. In addition, for the last week I’ve taken to reading at night instead of watching TV, and it’s really very cuddly up in here, with the dogs laying all over me and candles burning. It makes the long, stupid winter nights somehow less of a complete waste of time.

Two other notes. Jeremy Brett played Mr. Freddy Eynsford-Hill in the Audrey Hepburn film of My Fair Lady. And though I know a lot of popular TV & film characters would later be based on Holmes, the one who currently most reminds me of him in all his mannerisms is Sheldon on “The Big Bang Theory.”

Anyway, check out the PBS series if you have time, it’s quite charming.