Good morning. Hello. How are you? #584
Razzlekhan socially engineered me. Book of Boba Fett. Curling. Phil Elverum.
Good morning! Hello there, what’s up, how’s it shaking, your week going okay I hope? I am good. Watched a bunch more curling last night. Well, one game — men’s US vs ROC, because men’s curling takes forever compared to mixed doubles my god it is so slow there are so many ends and hammers. I like mixed doubling better. But that’s like saying you like chocolate ice cream more than cookie dough, because they are both awesome.
What is up with the ROC, though? First off, every time I see it I think “Republic of China,” as in Taiwan, since on old maps and in other places they’re often labeled as Taiwan ROC. Secondly, my understanding is that the Russian Olympic Committee got caught doping and so the Russians are being punished by having to compete under the banner of… the Russian Olympic Committee? I suspect it is more logical than that, but. I dunno, man. That whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense. How long is it going to last anyway? Obviously I could Google this, but I’m an American, I am not going to.
Jane has started writing on things. We have no idea what she’s talking about. It is kind of wonderful. Gonna have a little talk about it today.
Just had a dream where I was part of a group of three guys who mugged some armored car workers and stole a high-end piece of art, that was not any specific piece of art I recognized, but it looked like a Kandinsky or maybe a Klee. The genius part of this heist is that we were all prepared to camp in the wilderness for a week after we stole the piece. We were gonna bury the art in a Steralite bin under our tent and then just camp and so if they found us, we’d be like “oh yeah, we’re just camping here, but I think I saw some art thieves in the distance.” Except our ringleader sucked and got sick of camping after an hour and decided to hike into town, which I think was Perpignan, France. So I was like “this guy sucks” and I became him instead, like you do in dreams, and fixed everything. The perfect crime.
The print proof of Good Morning. Hello. How Are You? arrived yesterday. It looks marvelous. Emma has some slight tweaking to do, as do I because the inside title page landed on the left and not the right and you can’t have that. More than anything, though, I am just a little overwhelmed at how big it is and how small the type is. We cut a lot but it is still very long and part of me wants to completely shift plans right now and convert the thing to a two-volume set. I think it would look sweet as a two-volume set. I know people don’t love giant books with very small text. Of course, there will be an electronic version for those (like me) who don’t love small type. And I know we’re only talking, like, one or two hundred sales tops here, so maybe it doesn’t matter? But you guys are obviously the most likely buyer’s group, so let me know what you think?
In other important news, after posting yesterday’s edition, I came across a video wheree Heather S. Morgan, as opposed to Razzlekhan, gives a talk about social engineering, and I have now completely changed my opinion about her. All of her charm was calculated. She seems a cold genius.
I am now convinced she was the mastermind of the operation. And I’m positive that all of the videos on YouTube were a honeypot, just waiting for someone like me to find them. She knew eventually she would get caught, and that I would find her videos and think to myself “oh this woman seems so geniune and dorky she can’t possibly be guilty” and I would spearhead the Free Razzlekhan movement. It was all part of her Usual Suspectsian plan. I was fooled, but no more. Sokath, his eyes open. Sokath, his eyes uncovered. Darmok and Gilad at Tenagra. And no I do not have to explain that reference, teacher, we had to sit through you foisting books on us in ninth grade with weird-ass Ulysses references and they didn’t say “also that reference was from Ulysses” in them. Do you know how many people watched TNG Season 5, ninth grade teacher? Thirteen million, and that was before it was syndicated to the moon. That is just in the US. How many copies has Ulysses sold? Not freakin thirteen million, I’ll tell you that.
It was all part of her plan. Right now she is sitting in an FBI interrogation room, cool as a cucumber, confident that the FBI is going to find the perfect, exculpatory peice of evidence she left lying in wait in their apartment, the one that pins everything on Ilya, and lets her go scott-free.
Also, Ridley Scott naming his production company Scott-Free really was brilliant. I may as well and name mine World Wide Webb.
I’m slowly working my way through all ten pieces of vinyl in this Microphones box set, the thing really is majestic. It took me a half-hour yesterday to download all of the bonus content from Bandcamp. There were maybe 20 unique download codes to get all 8 albums in the box, and all of the bonus material – every single, EP, cassette, 55 live tracks, an album of pre-Microphones juvenelia, and the stems for as much of the content as he could find. The thing really is a masterpiece. It better win that weird Grammy for best limited edition box set packaging, or whatever its called.
Also the ten-minute mini doc about Phil Elverum is up on his YouTube page. It is pretty great. Single parenting, man. It must be intense. He seems a good parent. He is very good at saying “no, I don’t want to do that” in a calm and kind voice. I could definitely be better at that. He also said something really wise that made me feel better about myself. He said something along the lines of (and I am paraphrasing) “it’s important to keep busy, keeping busy is how we stay productive and grounded. Parenting is really good for this, because it keeps us connected to the tangible, the real, the simple stuff in life, what’s important. It keeps you from getting too inside your head, and this lets your art speak to the more universal” and man, thank you Phil Elverum, I really needed that pick me up. Also the part where he tries to explain My Bloody Valentine to his kid, yeah, wow.
Last night I started reading the biography of my maternal grandparents. It’s in draft form. It was written by my uncle Skip, who’s in his 80’s. He sent it to me, god, like three years ago now, for some possible help, and I just… didn’t get around to it till now, and I feel so awful. It’s also exactly the book he hoped it was, I read it rapt, learning things I never knew about my grandma and grandpa, two people who loomed so large in my childhood. It’ll be another two days till I finish the whole thing but I desperately want to help him finish it now. He had a note on it talking about how after he moved out of Alaska he doesn’t have as much first-hand information about his parents, and he was hoping that one day he could sit down with his sisters—my mom and aunt— and flesh out those decades, the 60’s and 70’s. In the note he seemed to think he’d never get around to it now, but I know that since then, my mom and aunt went to visit Skip for almost a month, and while no one mentioned it to me, I’m hoping that he did get to have those talks, that he has the material he needs to finish this. And I totally want to help him if I can. I feel so, so guilty taking three years to read this book. We only have so much time with our elders.
Finally, The Book of Boba Fett ended last night. I was mostly satisfied with the ending. Robert Rodriguez proved himself as a possible great match for Star Wars in certain situations. The mods really were too over the top. Cad Bane is awesome. It really is phenomenal how well Star Wars is bringing people over from animated series, it’s just… something I’ve never seen done so well before. Yeah, the series was uneven but it delivered a lot to a Gen X Star Wars addict. I am perfectly content with it.
Let’s do a mix, it’s a ladies mix. Most of the ladies to whom I have been listening on heavy rotation these past few weeks. Except for Sevdaliza I’ve been listening to her new song on repeat but I’ve already put it on two mixes so I will spare you. Mostly newer stuff here, except for Natasha and Sharon and Katie Jane Garside, formerly of Daisy Chainsaw, whom we’ve written about before, but this week I learned she was also briefly in Test Dept, so, yeah, she continues to be, like, the coolest. I tired to make this mix flow but it really does take some stylistic loop-de-loops. It works, though, honest.
May all your Thursdays be clear.
i love jane's cryptic writings!