Good morning. Hello. How are you? #434
These are not commercial exploitations, these scented candles, coffee cups and plates. They are totems. They are spiritual tools for the transfiguration of pain.
Good morning. Hello. How are you? I am okay. I may have overslept. By a lot. By… two hours and forty-three minutes. Gawd. Jane is at Grammy’s house, so I didn’t have to wake up, but I have a readership to serve, dadgummit. It is inexcusable. My humblest apologies. I had a bout of insomnia. I spent like three hours tossing and turning in bed concocting various wild schemes that would radically change my life and planning them into extraordinary detail. Some were reasonable, like work initiatives that we will probably do eventually so it’s good to plan, but it did not to be right then. Others were completely absurd. I guess I shouldn’t complain, I only get hit with insomnia maybe 4-5 nights a year. Generally I fall asleep immediately, and I am very much aware what a gift that is. Of course, when I do get insomnia, I have to be very careful to immediately forget about it, lest I spiral into a panic about how my great 49-year run of no insomnia is coming to an end. Because that would be horrific. So, you know. No biggie.
The other very exciting morning thing is that because Jane was here I got to have what I want for breakfast, when I want it. Within the confines of getting up 2+ hours late and needing to get to work. Usually in these situations I make breakfast burritos, but I had been making them every morning in Fairbanks so I was all breakfeast burrito-d out. So instead I noticed we had a box of my childhood soup - the Lipton Noodle Soup. My god I loved that shit so much as a kid. The trick was to use only 2 cups of water instead of 4, to make it extra concentrated, salty and thick, and so the broth-to-noodles ration was much better. Alternatively, if you were feeling hungry, you could make two packs into the 4 cups. Today I made it the way the instructions said, I thought “my palette has become more refined since childhood I’m sure I will prefer it this way,” but in the end, I probably shoulda gone with the 2-cup approach. Anyway, that stuff is as fantastic, delicious and empty as it was as a kid. If I were in some sci-fi movie or a fantasy one where I was being guided by an angel or ghost and I had a weird time-travel thing to my childhood, and I had to go enjoy my favorite childhood thing, it wouldn’t be ice cream or the girl next door, it would be Lipton Noodle Soup.
Also, that is the first time I’ve spelled “palette” correctly on the first try in my life. I’ve really been working on that a lot these last two years, and I just typed it out like it was no big deal. Fantastic.
My friend Gareth sent me an article yesterday, that I didn’t have time to get around to reading until bedtime. It was an oral history of All Tomorrow’s Parties, the music festival series. It was pretty good as oral histories go — maybe didn’t spend enough time talking about the dance nights or the pub but it got the gist of it. It made me miss ATP too much. I was on a Delta flight the other day (as you know) wearing my ATP shirt and a flight attendant saw my shirt and said “All Tomorrow’s Parties, what an optimistic statement, that sounds wonderful,” and I longingly said, “They were wonderful.” I didn’t realize how much I missed ATP till reading that article. I suppose in a way I ought to be thankful that they went belly-up exactly when they did, because I never had to miss out on them because of parenting and experience profound FOMO. Though my god, I would love to bring Jane to ATP so much.
ATP was… the best. Just the best. I had the honor of experiencing ATP in almost every venue: Camber Sands, Butlin’s Minehead, Kutshers, Los Angeles, Asbury Park, New York City, London (for a Don’t Look Back show). Never got to see the Primavera Sound stage (yet) or the Pitchfork stage. It was the best music experience, the best festival. Still the best dance nights I’ve ever been to (though, even with Declan DJing, they never really captured the magic of the dance nights in the US). Everything about it was fantastic. The chalets were magical. The people amazing. Yeah, a few assholes (er, sorry, c***s), but by and large it was an amazing and friendly crowd, you’d meet great people. Being that close to the bands was fantastic. Playing poker with Steve Albini. Drinking with that lady bassist of the Wedding Present who sang backing vocals. Everything about it felt like an alternate society in the same way that, I suspect, Burning Man does to some people. Though ATP never nailed down the venue situation, alas.
The pub. That, I have to say, was one thing fairly great across all of them. The Queen Victoria was the best pub, by far, but the Butlin’s pub was a close second, and even the Kutsher’s pub was serviceable.
If everything works out, maybe ATP will be resurrected in, like, three or four years, when Jane is old enough we could bring her along. And Janet. Put em in the Chalet next to us, hahaha. Yes, that timing would be perfect. One more ATP Hurrah for all. Bring it back to the beginning and get Belle and Sebastian or Mogwai to curate. Or hand it over to the next generation and get, like, Shamir or Holly Macve. I’m not picky. I have faith.
Also I got to see my sister play ATP, which is just the coolest thing ever for two kids from Fairbanks, AK.
If you’re feeling nostalgic for the old rock, and live in the UK you’re in luck. Selfridge’s is launching a Factory Records line. Yeah, I will probably have to buy some of this shit because I am a total sucker for Factory Records still. I am a sucker for a Don Quixotean business venture that doesn’t really care about profits at all. Ha I probably should not to admit to this as the COO of a venture-backed startuip. I used to have a Tony Wilson quote prominently displayed on the home page of The Barbarian Group. This probably should have been a warning to potential acquirers but the great thing is, even now, with this level of commercialization behind Factory Records, the bankers still don’t understand the references. It works just great. And after all, I used to run a blog about graphic design inspired by Factory Records. I already own a million ridiculous Factory Records brand extensions — Adidas Shoes, sheet metal posters — why not add a scented candle to the collection? I need it. I need a Joy Division scented candle. Who lives in London that can go buy all this junk for me.
Because, you see, if you actually listen to Disorder, it is such a bleak song. Joy Division: listening to the lyrics, taking the band on their merits. It is still a phenomenally painful experience. That music can still tap right into my soul and remind me how bleak and lonely life can be. So the only rational act of self preservation is to commodify it and put it into the form of a scented candle, and place that scented candle on a shelf and, in that ritual act of compression, of spiritual-physical metamorphosis, you can, in the process, contain and control the inner-pain that the music would otherwise stir. These are not commercial exploitations, these scented candles, coffee cups and plates. They are totems. They are spiritual tools for the transfiguration of pain.
Emma bought tickets for a show for next January — Erasure. A seated show, nice auditorium. I’m wondering at what age we just go ahead and buy three tickets and bring Jane to shows like that. Is four doable? Too young?
The Britney and Bill Cosby news was very sad and maddening on both parts, but I will offer two bits of optimism, or potential silver linings, or… oh, right hope is the word I’m looking for. To whit:
1) Bill Cosby’s conviction was overturned in a single state, due to a very specific set of circumstances about a prior prosecution agreement with that state. I am not a lawyer (best internet acronym, there: IANAL), but it seems to me very clear that any other state could prosecute Cosby for crimes committed in their state. And when you’re as melevolently, unrepentantly, repeatedly awful as Bill Cosby, it seems a safe bet that there was a crime committed in another state, one that has a decent amount of evidence and an enterprising prosecutor. Okay, maybe not a “safe” bet, but an even bet. I would take the odds. In short, this is not over.
2) That judge was ruling on a previous motion about Britney’s conservatorship management, the addition of the Bessemer trust and, yes, the possible removal of her father from the trust, but they were not ruling on the testimony Britney so memorably made last month. That is yet to come. All is not lost here yet, even though it’s ridiculous it is still in this state.
Wow, god, you know, I had nothing in my to-write list for today’s entry — that was one of the things I was tossing and turning about last night. I feel like it came out all right. Maybe a little short, but it had its moments. There are three things I told myself I’d get done today — on top of the usual litany of chores: these words, my 750 words, my quicken transactions, lunch, dinner, walk, Jane bedtime. I am revisiting that ambition right now. Two. If I get two of those things done today I will be happy. Now, the $64,000 question: which two?
Here’s a mix! It’s a drone rock mix, so you will probably find it boring. Well, not you. Actually, yeah, sorry about that. I was just telling a friend the other day I found the Podcast “You’re Wrong About” off-putting because of the title, because I’m not wrong about it, thankyouverymuch. She told me that it was meant as constructive. She is probably right. I am probably misinterpreting. When I was reminiscing about ATP last night, I was thinking about this guy we were hanging out with, Entrance. Amazing folk musician (check Discogs, see he has a newish album from 2017, add it to Spotify to investigate), and it literally just occurred to me for the first time that his name was probably en-TRANCE, as in to bewitch, instead of en-TRENCE, as in a door. It is such a better name than I realized, for, like, fifteen years. So, yeah, sorry about the “you” up there. YOU probably love drone rock. But SOMEONE probably doesn’t. So I apologize to them. The great thing about drone rock mixes though is the songs are so long you only need like ten of them to make an hour mix. You’d think I’d have dozens of these by now. But, alas, we are only on volume eight. Mostly oldish, though that Mogwai song is pretty new, and Mark E is pretty new.
Oh and it’s Friday. That’s exciting. I’m gonna try and re-arrange my studio this weekend. Because traveling is a terrible idea and no fun and a productivity sap and will give your kids the delta variant and no one wants to work for the hotels to help you out anyway. I kid. Sort of.
Have a lovely fourth of July weekend.
appreciate the hope for britney. also the candle bit. ❤️🌈
The problem with Cosby generally is Statutes of Limitations...