Wednesday, June 01, 2005
June has long been my favorite month of the year. Traditionally, school is about to end, and the pretty girlies (or guys, if you like) are busting out and out of their halter tops and racerbacks (or trousers, if you like). In Illinois, winter lasts long enough that you literally forget what warm weather feels like--so waking up beneath an azure dome of 70-degree goodness one fine morning feels like something out of a dream. Very pleasant.
Today I had an encounter with three young squirrels on my nature walk. I heard them at the base of a tree near the very head of the trail, and just like the deer from last month they didn't much mind my presence, as long as I was quiet. These squirrels were about 8-10 inches long (not including their tails), and I stood about 4 feet from them, close enough to see that squirrels are really just oversized hamsters. They're fairly cute, though, when they're not breaking into your birdfeeder, and today it was fun watching them play dead and gnaw on one another's ears until they caught sight of the next passing biker, when they would freeze and twitch their noses and generally look as adorable as rodents can.
I bought some CDs yesterday, so here's a few comments on those:
~ I think the eponymous Blink-182 album is probably the only album I know that does not have a single weak song. Unbelievably solid, assuming that (like me) you relate to the facile emotion and hooky guitars of top-shelf emo/pop-punk. Really good stuff, and I'd recommend it to anybody who likes rock music.
~ LCD Soundsystem is the most overrated band I've come across. Apparently repeating the same self-consciously retro drum machine loop and repeating some lame hipster lyrics over and over and over that loop qualifies as genius songcraft these days. What a bunch of shit. I could not have been more disappointed.
~ The Postal Service's Give Up is exceptionally enjoyable, I think. I like it better than any but the very best Death Cab, which statement illustrates that I am free of bias against self-consciously retro drum loops. "Nothing Better" has emerged as a favorite, with instrumentation right off a circa-1988 Casio playing off a gorgeous melody sung duet by Ben Gibbard and Jen Wood. Sad, but not overwhelmingly so. Perhaps I'm shallow--I don't have a problem with that.
~ "I Turn My Camera On," by Spoon, is the sexiest song I've heard since Rob did a striptease to "Crush with Eyeliner" at Rick's parents' house. Made me untouchable for life!
I've got some of Kate and Rick's wedding pics up on my Flickr site. There's one I'm very proud of--should be obvious.
Today I had an encounter with three young squirrels on my nature walk. I heard them at the base of a tree near the very head of the trail, and just like the deer from last month they didn't much mind my presence, as long as I was quiet. These squirrels were about 8-10 inches long (not including their tails), and I stood about 4 feet from them, close enough to see that squirrels are really just oversized hamsters. They're fairly cute, though, when they're not breaking into your birdfeeder, and today it was fun watching them play dead and gnaw on one another's ears until they caught sight of the next passing biker, when they would freeze and twitch their noses and generally look as adorable as rodents can.
I bought some CDs yesterday, so here's a few comments on those:
~ I think the eponymous Blink-182 album is probably the only album I know that does not have a single weak song. Unbelievably solid, assuming that (like me) you relate to the facile emotion and hooky guitars of top-shelf emo/pop-punk. Really good stuff, and I'd recommend it to anybody who likes rock music.
~ LCD Soundsystem is the most overrated band I've come across. Apparently repeating the same self-consciously retro drum machine loop and repeating some lame hipster lyrics over and over and over that loop qualifies as genius songcraft these days. What a bunch of shit. I could not have been more disappointed.
~ The Postal Service's Give Up is exceptionally enjoyable, I think. I like it better than any but the very best Death Cab, which statement illustrates that I am free of bias against self-consciously retro drum loops. "Nothing Better" has emerged as a favorite, with instrumentation right off a circa-1988 Casio playing off a gorgeous melody sung duet by Ben Gibbard and Jen Wood. Sad, but not overwhelmingly so. Perhaps I'm shallow--I don't have a problem with that.
~ "I Turn My Camera On," by Spoon, is the sexiest song I've heard since Rob did a striptease to "Crush with Eyeliner" at Rick's parents' house. Made me untouchable for life!
I've got some of Kate and Rick's wedding pics up on my Flickr site. There's one I'm very proud of--should be obvious.
