Meet me in the desert.

"Hot Shots II" is easy-listening music for a warm summer's night, stretched out on a pew perched on the rings of Saturn, watching celestial events all while sipping pan galactic gargle blasters.

and re: the lyrics to "Following Through", the lyrical perspective seems quite hard to pin down- at first it's maybe wistful, thinking about a relationship that never really came to fruition and wondering what might've been. Then the chorus suggests a triumphant defiance but in the final line it changes to a kind of resigned, graceful defeat ("I'm just following through"). I like this apparent confusion.

Could Josh or anyone else fill this in for me: "When I was ten, I had this book of modern fighterplanes, with F15s and ---(part I can't hear properly)---Ocean City girls on the boardwalk singing 'oh oh oh oh"

cheers,

Tim F, you're right: "All I know" is a thing of understated beauty.

Another good thing: Tinkling piano keys. You can find them on the third part of Mos Def's "Brooklyn". And quite a bit on "Hot Shots II", I think. And many many other places. Someone should come here and party with me on New Years.

Yesterday I went up to Tucon's Mt. Lemmon. Staring out the car window: rows of cacti seem to stretch ever heavenward, poking the puffy underbellies of the clouds like some celestial re-enactment of the pillsbury doughboy commercial. Then: white patches begin to dot the mountainscape like the epidermis of a concerned patient in a dermatologist's waiting room. Finally: layers of thick white impasto snow hug the rock in an embrace more frigid than one received from a distant relative in a display of reluctant affection. I've never been much of an outdoorsman myself, but it was breathtaking.

It's a good thing I brought with Boards of Canada's "In a beatiful place out in the country" EP that I purchased not two days before.

Amo Bishop Rodan.

Scene: Borders, a mall.

Her: ...so of couse I dumped him.
Him: Well, you don't have to worry about *me* getting it up!

She didn't look or sound any older than 14. Yes, blah blah society's rapidly descending moral codes etc. but what worries me is that there's probably a 15 yr old guy out there fretting over his possible sexual dysfunction when he should be, I dunno, playing Mortal Kombat Twelve in the arcade or something.

On second thought: fuck him. That's what you get for screwing precociously picky 14 yr olds.

waitforit....

("..with F15s and Migs")/ "that and a bowl of breyer's mint chip was life at its apex"

The Not Especially Good Stuff, In Fact, the Rather Downright Bad Stuff About My Trip to Las Vegas: It was incredibly frustating. Back home, at age 18 you're legally entitled to drink, gamble, get into nightclubs, drink some more etc. This means you're sneaking into clubs and getting plastered at age 16. By the time you reach 19, you're waxing nostalgic about the good ol' days and wondering if maybe you aren't ready to settle into a slightly less "hectic" weekend routine. So you arrive in Vegas with a distaste for excessive glitz, but at the same time you secretly hope that you'll be able to take advantage of at least some of that delicious, leather-clad, booty-shakin', high-rollin' decadence you've heard so much about. But lest you forget: you're a minor. None of that for you. You may as well be 12. Argh.

I did manage a little gambling and, really, I wouldn't have done much more had it been legal for me to do so. I can't watch money turn to nothing, it eats me up on da insidez. I'm pretty sure I get this cash neurosis from my mom. And, with the ever-weakening SA Rand, performing constant currency conversions in my head (ie. multiplying everything by 12) can be a stomach-churning exercise. And I had a running nose and a scratchy throat, but if I mention that I run the risk of coming off like a tedious, whiny, (undersexed), self-involved pre-post-teen *and* a sympathy whore.

So, yeah, mostly disappointed. And wondering how I'm going to scare up some decadence of my very own back here in lil' Tucson in 12 hours. And it's my Dad's birthday today, too. Happy Birthday Dad.

And Josh, if you've *needed* a burned copy all this time, why did you not ask? ;-)

I have made this great deal with my friend returning from a year abroad in a couple weeks. She predicted that both of our New Years were probably gonna be dull family affairs, and suggested that we celebrate it on January 20th. I advise all the achin' heart ILE'ers (hi Jess!) to do likewise. Let's make Jan 20 New Years, take 2.

does yr offer of burning the d.i. singles (ala yr top 136 of the 90s) still stand?

Natch.

Teacher: Okay, settle down, class. Today, Thommy's going to tell us all about doors. Thommy?
Thommy: There are doors on the rudders of big ships and there are revolving doors.

I'm not sure if this is a universal experience, but whenever I return from a sizeable period of travel, I experience disorienting 'mis- memories'- fr'instance, listening to CDs last night as my brain hovered between dreams and consciousness, I kept feeling as if I was about to open my eyes to find myself in a hotel room in Paris, or my bed in Tucson, or felt a niggling worry over whether or not my luggage would arrive. Each time I would awake to find myself at home, which I found (perhaps oddly) more saddening than comforting.

Prefuse 73 - Vocal Studies and Uprock Narratives
Boards of Canada - In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country
King Biscuit Time - King Biscuit Time "sings" Nelly Foggit's Blues in "me and the Pharaohs"/No Style EP
Broadcast - The Noise Made By People
Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy EP
SchneiderTM - Moist
Disco Inferno - D.I. Go Pop
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
kid606 - GQ on the EQ++
Microstoria - Init Ding
N.E.R.D - In Search Of...
Schneider TM &
KPT.michi.gan - Binokular
Dntel - Life is Full of Possibilites
Piano Magic - Seasonally Affective

Too much IDM. I wanted more pop and hiphop. Oh well. IDM still good. I'll comment on some of these later.
(additionally, all of these were found used, save for "Since I Left You", "Binokular" and the Piano Magic and DNTEL albums. Honestly, what some people'll get rid of.)

the California Desert(s)

mitch?