Meet me in the desert.

Welcome to MitchBlog. It's just like those other blog things you read, except much much better. Sometimes it'll be considered and weighty, other times it'll be knee-slappingly hilarious and, every third Tuesday from March 14 - May 8, it's the unofficial "Save The Ecuadorian Seaslug" forum. But first and foremost, it's all about the Mitch.

Welcome aboard. Buckle up. It's gonna quite a ride.

Dubplatestyle: i'm hungry but i dont think there's anything around
MitchAnon: what about the sushi that fell behind the fridge 3 days ago?
Dubplatestyle: it's helping out with the rent now
MitchAnon: HAHA
Dubplatestyle: i'll probably end up getting some junk after i go the physician later.
MitchAnon: shouldn't you eat the junk and THEN go to the physician?
Dubplatestyle: hmmmm...perhaps. do they still leech people? (i havent been to the doctor in a long time, obv.)
MitchAnon: only if specifically requested.
MitchAnon: trust me, you'll want it.
Dubplatestyle: i think i wanna become an android.
MitchAnon: one that feels?
Dubplatestyle: no.
Dubplatestyle: just so i can eat nachoes every day and not get fat.
MitchAnon: why not just binge and purge? cheaper than a robo- ostomy
Dubplatestyle: i dislike vomit. trust me, i've weighed my options carefully. its the only way.
MitchAnon: alright. get robo-boobs while yr at it. you'll thank me later.
Dubplatestyle: hmmmm...only if i get a robo-gina.
MitchAnon: one of my dogs' name is gina. (pronounced "jeena" of course.) so robo-gina brings me a different mental picture.
Dubplatestyle: as opposed to chrome labia i suppose.
MitchAnon: my parrot's name is labia.
Dubplatestyle: i dont want to know what it says. or maybe i do.
MitchAnon: for details, look under "personals" in the paper.
Dubplatestyle: south african pervert parrot seeks south eastern pennsylvania slob for internation, interspecies romance. no smokers.
MitchAnon: or fatties.
MitchAnon: oh wait, "slob".
MitchAnon: no wierdos.
Dubplatestyle: well, i'll just have to find a different parrot on both counts then.
MitchAnon: there's plenty of parrots in the sea.
Dubplatestyle: wouldnt they all be dead tho?
MitchAnon: picky picky picky
Dubplatestyle: sorry, my momma taught me better than that
MitchAnon: certain lessons cannot be taught. they must be lived.
MitchAnon: COMING SOON:
Dubplatestyle: this summer, learn to live and love. all over again.
Dubplatestyle: (that new radicals song mst be playing in the background.)
MitchAnon: starring pauly shore as that little mirror thing that the parrot looks into
Dubplatestyle: i think we've got a winner on our hands.
MitchAnon: joan cusack won't commit.
MitchAnon: we can get the less-popular 3rd cusack sibling, shecky
Dubplatestyle: director: ron howard?
MitchAnon: no no, what about that freckly red-haired kid from 'happy days'?
MitchAnon: tom hanks?
Dubplatestyle: henry winkler?
MitchAnon: yeah yeah. him.
Dubplatestyle: eeeeeeeyyyyyy.
MitchAnon: yeah, we'll call him the "fronz" so as to avoid copyright issues
MitchAnon: and instead of eeeeeeeeeyyyy, he'll say 'ooooooooooooh'
Dubplatestyle: hmmmm...how would we feel about replacing him with tony danza and replacing the parrot with a robot. and setting it in a japanese noodle house?
MitchAnon: you are totally on my wavelength.
Dubplatestyle: all right, i'm gonna greenlight ths and assign a 500 million dollar budget.
MitchAnon: danza can play the washed-up former dot.com billionaire, now professional nudist hacky-sack player.
MitchAnon: get your people to talk to my people, we'll set something up next week at the oxygen bar. bring the sushi.
MitchAnon: man, that sushi is a *card*!

Shame on you, Mitch Lastnamewithheld.

What are you going to have for lunch?

The first comes from a young lady who enthusiastically exclaims "HOT XXX WATCH ME SWALLOW YOUR CUM FOR ONLY $4 A MONTH!!". The rest of the mail was of a decidely ribald nature, and I am uncertain about reproducing it here. Nonetheless, am I the only one who hears the faint chimes of wedding bells just over the horizon?
The second is from a Scandanavian gentlemen who explained to me in broken english that because of our "wonderfuly freindness", he is sharing with me a secret scheme involving an ailing Great Uncle and an inheritance of astronomical proportions, and all I have to do is deposit $350 in his bank account by next Tuesday. Who says writing doesn't pay, huh?
Keep 'em coming, guys!

Voting begins now and ends in 2 minutes.

Swimming! I went swimming! Well, almost, I just sorta waded around the pool, I don't think I even did a lap.

So how come when I first heard "Harder Better Faster Stronger" on TV, I thought "so *this* is the fantastic stuff off the much-loved Discovery!" but when I downloaded the mp3, I listened once and never wanted to hear it again? The mind works in mysterious ways. Now downloading: "One More Time".

Just thought about last night's Futurama again. It was *poignant*.

Anthony: You have exposed the inherent problems in not being able to moderate my own blog. And I'm calm now. Take your Great Dane elsewhere. (it wasn't Hamlet, was it?)

James thinks I NEED MORE HANLE Y-ESQUE CAPS. Rainy concurs. I, however, disagree: lowercase is softer on the eyes.

Interactive TV: Where is it? I'm certain we were meant to have it by now. Or is the 3rd world just lagging behind and you people overseas can choose with your remotes how much eyeshadow the CNN lady should be sporting?

"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.)

Scene: Exiting a shopping mall after dinner.

Situation: This is a couple weeks ago- I've just had dinner with a group of people that I'm vacationing with. One of them is quite worried about her family, she's just got this feeling that there's something wrong. Her friend is trying to comfort her. I'm walking a few steps behind, listening. (Side note: Look, I don't do this all the time, I'm not some mad sociologist or anything.)

I feel a cold shiver run thru me. Why? Why: The comfort offered by the friend sounds so rehearsed, so obvious, so delivered- but at the same time the insincerity is immaculately fashioned, with such calculated precision and care of craft, that it displayed- paradoxically- what could only be some kind of genuine concern for her friend.

Thanks to the ever-weakening local currency, buying import (read: everything that isn't locally pressed) albums is becoming a very, *very* costly exercise. The good side: shiny, (and locally-pressed) pop is still relatively affordable. I've subsequently decide that I should start buying these records. My recent pop ephiphanies have mostly been mp3-bound events: I wasn't sure that I needed entire albums of the stuff. Just a couple months later and it seems silly that I could've been so cautious about giving a pop-house album a chance to find it's way into my listening life (so tentative was I that I shamefully didn't even buy the thing: I burned an mp3 copy.) To my then-suprise, embracing "Rooty" was remarkably easy, and a fuckload of fun to boot. If I still had any lingering indie-kid groin fear issues, "Get Me Off" set me free.

That's not really what I wanted to talk about, though. I'm getting there, I think. So where were we? Oh yeah, I had just discovered that pop could sustain my love for the length of an entire lp and was cheap too, so with this in mind I finally picked up Aaliyah's self titled album. And (*Here Comes the Part You Probably Already Know*) it's astonishingly great. I already knew I loved "WNAR", "Try Again" and "More Than a Woman" (thanks to Mel W. for turning me on to "More.."), but apart from the enthusiastic writings of Mr. Finney and Mr. Honda, why hasn't even more of a fuss been made about, say, the menacing tropicalia of "Read Between the Lines" ("he's talking in dubs" is a fantastic lyric, too) or the rubber-band shooting, orchestra-hit indignance of "U Got Nerve" or the underwater daydreams of "It's Whatever" or the epic melodrama of "I Refuse" or the gorgeous ache of my favourite Portishead song ever, "I Care 4 U" or just about everything else on the album? Nevertheless, it's one of the most instantly loveable records I've yet discovered, and one that I'm plan to cherish (and probably continue to gush about) for some time.

Last song I listened to as a teenager: Eminem's "Stan".
First song I listened to as a post-teenager: Eminem's "Kill You".

I got less action during my teenage years than your average priest.

I forgot how much I enjoy the inflated sense of self-importance that blogging provides!

He who cries most, wins.

Is it "Igbo Uku" or "Igbo Ukwu"? And what's the difference between Igbo Ukwu and Igbo?

I should probably stop being a lazy fucker and get a job now, huh?

How did I get this old without loads of important stuff happening?

Male Senufo Mask: Korubla.
Female Senufo Mask: Kpelie.

Okay Okay the beaded apron worn by Ndebele girl post-puberty, pre- marriage is called "Isiphephetu". I can remember that by thinking "Is she prepared to?" haha. ha. Any of you UK poster's know about Yinko Shonibare? His art was apparently displayed in the tube stations- photos of a black man as a victorian dandy? ring a bell? Anyway I gotta write about him.

Uhm.

And how is post-adolescence? Did you get depressed?

Basically, music listening of late has consisted of 4 things: "The Eminem Show", this mix cd I made with some recent pop singles and other stuff I had on mp3 but not on cd, whatever mp3s I've soulsought that day and "Music for Airports". I'm just gonna go and give ya the mix cd tracklist because I'm convinced it's the greatest mix cd ever:

1) mystikal - bouncin' back

2) soulwax - smells like booty (quiet ronan)

3) aaliyah - are you that somebody?

4) outkast - the whole world

5) the strokes - hard to explain (quiet everybody)

6) basement jaxx - '4 my people' remix

7) toya - no matta what (party all night) (i heard a version of this on the radio with the filtered jungle beats replaced with conventially paced r&b beats and it wasn't nearly as good. did they change it or do i have a remix or what?)

8) dr dre - what's the difference?

9) jay-z - big pimpin' (the most perfect beat ever obv)

10) tweet - oops oh my (i don't like it as much as i thought i did but it's still good)

11) the avalanches - run dna (as good as it is, somehow this ruins the flow of the mix)

12) m.r.i - blue

And now: dammit if I don't feel *guilty* when I put The Dismemberment Plan or even The Eminem Show, and at stop lights my finger darts between the CD and FM buttons, making complicated aesthetic decisions while I change gears. Oh and there's probably a guy next to my car begging for change or a mother clutching her child or a variety of people who may well have a more intimate knowledge of what's going on in these songs (be able to understand the lyrics can only help)(then again a lot of it is dance/club-based so I think often we're talking chants and shouts more than introspection, but the "pure" hip-hop influence varies, today I heard a song with trad hip-hop flow, verses and then the beat came in and things got considerably house-ier)(shit I think I stole this endless parentheses thing from Mr. Daddino and I like it but it must be a bitch to read)(sorry Josh and Tim and Jel haha)

WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY:
indie guilt + white guilt = whindie guilt?

on another topic, and i can't believe i forgot to tell you this cos it fucking blows my mind: i was in the 2nd hand store the other day and i saw a TWO DISC BAHA MEN CAREER RETROSPECTIVE!! with a big sticker on the front that said: from the band that brought you WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?

i mean *come on*. as jess rightly asked: "what's next? a sixpence none the richer box set?

(two mins later)
hmm amg sez their first lp was released in 1979! so this '20 years of party jams' stuff is all true! well there ya go. but enough about the baha men already. off to bed for me. and if yr good, maybe i'll try and explain (using lots of parentheses)(and that-dash-thing-i- sometimes-do) why i find love's "always see your face" so affecting.

brian eno - by this river
nore - nothin'
nelly - hot in herre (i 'got' it for the 1st time yesterday)
superpitcher - tomorrow (i thought my pc ate this but here it is!)
herbert - addiction, lotta other stuff from 'bodily functions'
vu - candy says
golden boy feat
miss kitten - rippin kitten
aaliyah - are you feelin me?
marvellous
cain - dub plate style

"Overheard", Installment #3:

Scene: I'm sitting in the univeristy computer room, there's a fine arts faculty staff meeting going on in the next room. The door's closed, but I can still hear what's going on.

voice I don't recognize: "it sounds so jewish!
me (thinking): !
v.i.d.r: "so what *is* a 'sabbatical'?
me: ha ha

yes so here I am in the wee hours of the morning, severly sleep-deprived and on a minor sugar high: anything you wanna talk about before my head comes crashing down on the keyboard or I start singing "the whole world" as loud as I can like I was doing 15 minutes ago in the car? this is your chance to Ask Mitch Anything™!

Road trip, short track: the rock 'n' roll classic Action Packed by Ronnie Dawson. It's the only R&R number I can think of that expresses the view that a car is too slow and dull, and Ronnie wants a rocket ship instead. It's about 1:40.

Josh: I don't have to like *everything* you like, alright?

no explanation to follow

yes.

(not that it makes any difference NOW)

Mitch come back and post to yer blog!!

how can i refuse double exclamation points! so, here i am.

today is one of the coldest days ever in jhb, and it's my thursday-evening job to stay here and keep the computer room open till 9:30 for some hypothetical student that never comes. whenever i come out of here i have one frigid 'mouse hand' that's been exposed to the elements (i think the white walls retain the cold or something) and one warm one that's been in my pocket.

on the way out of university, i was listening on headphones to jay-z's "regrets" (a beautiful, sad, small song) and i noticed a new noice - a kind of swoosh, or a shuffle maybe. when it became more pronounced, i realized that it might be coming from outside my headphones (which i didn't expect, because i was walking across a deserted parking lot at night). so i take them off, and i hear one of the strangest sounds i've ever heard: a high frequency buzzing, at a regular rhythm, a bit like an amplified cricket. i walk on, following the noise (at times i was convinced it was RIGHT next to me, even UNDERNEATH my feet) and then i see, standing on the raised sliver of pavement that separates the parking lot from the road to the university exit, this long legged grey-white bird, standing very still and talking this noise. after some fascinated moments, i began to laugh, and then tried to get closer. i did, but i didn't maintain my observational distance and the bird flew away.

just had a strange, turbulent, unique dream. excuse the 'automatic writing', it's less an ilx aesthetic pretense of inconsequence this time and more genuine half-dazedness. i quite like hearing people's dreams, but if you don't then ignore this. it's a 'personal exercise' in recollection.

i fell asleep while reading sons and lovers, and at least 2 consequences of this emerged in the dream: firstly, i was doing a bit of landscape exploring, poking about some abandoned patch of land (note: i cannot be certain if this section of the dream actually existed, or i invented it as backstory in phase 2 of the dream), not unlike the bucolic hills and meadows that twentysomething paul (note 2, an interlude: i was about to write the character's last name, and it struck me that a fellow student might discover this page while googling for essay material. i'm not sure when this page would be available, or if it'd rank any higher than #834258 when searching for info about sons and lovers, but somehow i'd never really considered that i've got such a naked account of myself up here on the internet, or at least never thought about it being actually discoverable by people i know, people that i've met) and miriam and clara poke about. i felt some presence of others in the dream, but can't remember anyone being present.

more interesting, perhaps (not that that's been a qualifier for the ol blog here in the past), is part 2: i dream i that i have worken up, but i'm not approaching lucidity - i've woken up in the restroom of some kind of school/prison complex, brown/grey walls, industrial-looking, something like a level taken out of the first quake game. my right eye's been giving me a little trouble in real life (a bad contact lense maybe or, worse, a nascent infection), in the dream it was caked shut with a sort of remarkably adhesive version of those eye crust things you may or may not have experienced (eww). and i can't move properly, i stumble around, like an invalid, or maybe as a man in a straight jacket (lyrical excerpt from eminem song i've been listening to lots recently: "i hate the straight jacket, it ain't latching, and can't lock it/so they stapled my hands to my pants pockets"). anyway, i'm holding a bottle which i drop to the ground, alerting a nearby guard. he's not one of those 'metal gear solid' guards that shoots you when alerted to your presence tho, more the helpful type that opens up for me when i need to drop something off at university at 2am.

so anyway i convince the guard that i'm not drunk/on drugs, in fact i'm suprised to note that i've only been asleep for two hours (it's 11pm, i note, so i must've been out at around 9). he seems amiable enough, let's me out the complex, even opening a window and watching me as a stumble out the door - a mix of concern and surveillance (i'm so unsteady that it embarrasses me, i'm glad that he didn't see me slip as i walked out the door). it's dark outside (being 11pm and all), and i'm trying to feel my way back to the place i visited in part 1.

at this point, the 'unique' bit i mentioned comes in - i realize that i'm at once acting out the dream in the first person and simultaneously scripting/reading it, composing my reactions with the same sharp, direct, language of emotion (emotional language?) that lawrence uses -"he shrank", "he was furious", "he winced". so i'm both inside the moment - there's a palpable sense of fear - and detached from it. i'm trying to pry my way into 'my place' (it's now surrounded by a rusty fence), and i become aware of a man behind me, coming to attack me (about 30 minutes before falling asleep, i found out that a friend's parents had been hijacked [carjacked, as you might call it] the day before). at the same time, i'm writing ABOUT my fear, describing how the arrival of the terrifying man was imminent. then i woke up.

i warned you that reading this might be of little or no 'value' to you.

alone, again, in the computer room. using ilx as a procrastination device. in the campus cafe, about 20 meters from here, they're filming something. probably an ad. lights, makeup etc. feels so remote from here.

i'm making an interactive movie. i'm having trouble working out how the different paths resolve themselves.

omg, these are the best doritos EVER. how do they make "cool spice"? it seems oxymoronic. delicious though.

i haven't resolved anything yet.

assuming it was ever 'on', mitchblog has really fallen off.

i haven't been home. i haven't finished. it's the morning of the exhibition day. i don't know if i can finish. i'm exhausted. i want to throw up. this isn't worth it.

i nearly destroyed myself finishing this in time. but my quicktime movies have been saved in a format such that they are unreadable on my brother's laptop, which i am using to show them. so i have nothing. three weeks of late nights and early mornings and stress and nausea and hard work don't mean shit now.

(maybe you can borrow someone's laptop it will work on)

okay, back to work.

still here, still working, very tired. nothing of interest to report.

what's up? let's see... trying to cut down ilx usage, failing, hiding behind pseudonym "m." (you'd be disguised too if you'd done drunken london ilx fap karaoke like i've done drunken london ilx fap karaoke), getting lazier, experiencing constant faint sense of imminent unpleasantness, joined a gym (haven't started yet however), convinced of own ugliness again, tired of wanting new things, restless yet lethargic, bored of being single, unsatisfied with own creative work. not entirely unhappy, though.

and you?

i didn't read all the posts on here. i have lived in tucson for about a year and a half, i was in phoenix for 3 years. tucson is a much better place than phoenix...it's not a sprawling strip mall with 115° summers, you can walk around and actually get somewhere (sort of depending on where you are in tucson), the restaurants are better, as is the coffee and, lastly, PDQ RECORDS IS A WAREHOUSE FULL OF WAX!!!

i've been thinking about the desert

the great american one

An old-timey term it sez, and yet I keep hearing it.

those wacky mormons and their irrigation

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Circle-contradict.svg/33px-Circle-contradict.svg.png

I am bookmarking this

ooh it's scaleable\\http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Circle-contradict.svg/100px-Circle-contradict.svg.png

http://www.desertusa.com/life.html

Great American Desert

the California Desert(s)

mitch?