[ sound.&.vision ]

[ onwards... ]

2008-01-21T04:49:00.000-05:00

...and really, more sideways than upwards.

We now join this new blog, already in progress.

[ a one-question IQ test for your cat or small dog! ]

2006-05-29T04:44:00.000-04:00

1) Can you, in the event of a sock being placed about your head up to the neck, free yourself from the sock?

So far, the Coalition for Creative & Hilarious Animal Abuse (a member of the Global Defense Dynamics Corporation family) has administered the test to three participants:

Alice B. "Tonks" Dillon: failed (undocumented)
Skittles Major: passed (pictured below)
The Great American Novel "Charity" Giuliani-Khan: failed (basically the funniest thing we've ever seen)

Fig A: Skittles' attempts have ceased, signifying temporary victory for the inanimate sock. Skittles' other bouts with socks resulted in sucess, however.

Please submit all results (and appropriate documentation) to your local Global Defense Dynamics Corporation representative.

[ another wasted opportunity to perform a good deed ]

2006-02-06T02:19:00.000-05:00

Sit a spell, my friends, and let me tell you why I have failed you all:

For the summer fashion season, the Smith Bros. clothing store in Bryn Mawr Plaza featured the gaudy, tasteless, ad-exec-notion-of-hip window promo pictured below:

Everything down to the lower-case "i"s planted this monstrosity in the same aesthetic as the 13-year-old girls it sought to woo into the store's catacombs of sassed-up mediocrity. It looks like the first half of a terribly-token screen name (e.g. XxBLiNGiNCHiKxX), and would have looked terrific on my bare, bare walls.

I conceived of a plan to remove it from the premises in a go-for-broke snag-and-haul-ass caper involving Josh as some manner of suitable distraction, and giggled in glee every time I passed by the storefront on my way to caffeination.

...then, when winter fashions mandated a change in the store's presentation, away it went, my window of opportunity for tripling my net fabulousness (also: obtaining a really, really silly police record) with it.

My deepest apologies to one and all.

Music: The Cure - To Wish Impossible Things. When choosing an album to cap off a fantastic night, do NOT make it Wish. Wish is sad, sad, sad.

[ some might consider this pornographic... ]

2005-12-06T20:28:00.000-05:00

...but those folks have a disorder named after them, I imagine.

As the summer months faded into early September and school started again, I struggled to situated myself relative to the uncomfortable reality that I no longer had much legitimate claim to being oncampus, aside from The Band. One amazing Friday, Lewis and I drove down to the guitar center, and picked up the absolute beauty pictured below:

The body and neck are actually part of a single piece of deep, cherry-ish wood. The pickups are a hungry pair of Humbucker coils, though the guitar's signal strength doesn't quite compare to the ever-reliable keyboard. (I think the keyboard has lentils in it, at the moment.) The tone varies from a reedy, thin twang to a low, rumbly purr. The action is fast and pliant, with more flexibility out of the high strings than I'd consider healthy, frankly. (The high strings are where the instrument sings, by the by, though that's more to do with my lack of skill than the instrument's own properties). She's an Ibanez whose design/soul strives towards a Gibson, her own model name an obscurity.

...her name is Elise, and she's far more than I deserve, though I certainly don't plan on things staying that way.

Flush with the success of picking out a guitar that seemed to accommodate both my heavy inclinations towards the stylings of both My Bloody Valentine-mastermind Kevin Shields and U2-backbone The Edge, Lewis and I returned to Haverford nothing short of ecstatic. As it were, I'd slept for two hours that day, and hadn't had much more than a slice of pizza to eat.

...one party, two bottles of Lionshead, three shots of 101-proof Whisky, a glass of red wine, a disowned gin & tonic, and perhaps a brief ninety minutes later, I found myself fetal on a bandstand that had been set up for the next day's Cubano-American Pride Event, talking to Josh about the differences between how Java and C compile.

...about two minutes thereafter, the remnants of a seven-year, four-month vomit streak (in the form of an undigested slice of pizza) showered the grass by the bandstand.

Fucking crazy night, that.

Music: Daniel Lanois - Sonho Durado. I will teach myself to play this song to a high degree of tonal accuracy, if nothing else.

[ i've been driving / a mid-sized car... ]

2005-09-05T06:32:00.000-04:00

Note the low, low price of regular-grade gas of $2.839 a gallon. I have just finished filling up my FUCKING HONDA ACCORD. The gods-among-men who engineered the '94 wagon would be devastated to know that it had ever cost $40 to fill it up.

To be fair, they'd be pretty displeased about my letting it run so empty it needed all 15 gallons of gas its tank could hold, but that's far more preventable, and far less-widespread in its geopolitical ramifications. Note that I'm amply visible in the reflection of the gas meter, and probably earned myself a few snide stares from other Sunoco patrons in misinterpretation of my particular brand of tomfoolery.

While my recourse is limited, it's not without its satisfaction: The featured picture is from a post-it affixed to the gas-door of a Ford Excursion, the most obese of Ford's SUV line.

I've seen these fuckers get bigger and dumber since the whole SUV trend began in earnest around 1998 or so; I was fuming all the while, mentally preparing myself for the sort of doomsday economic conditions we face at present. If it didn't involve an oil baron or twelve getting rich as sin, a nation's population growing insular and jingoist, and kids my age fucking dying in a goddamned war, I'd find myself pretty vindicated at the sight of some asshole kid reeling from an $80 or $90 gas station purchase. As it is, I can do little more than walk everywhere I need to go, stick post-it notes on offensive cars, and yell at them from the sidewalk like a streetcorner schizophrenic.

Music: Explosions In The Sky - Have You Passed Through This Night? Arguably, the low point on the album comes during the extended, monologue dramatique at the start of this song, much like the terribly-overwrought voice-acting in M83's "Car Crash Terror!" Almost unlistenable.

[ an open letter to Christian Leue ]

2005-08-30T05:22:00.000-04:00

Dear Christian,

If you're going to leave pictures of you as a charmingly-goofy kid wearing a cream-coloured suit at a size appropriate for playing dress-up lying around your house unattended, please do not be surprised if said pictures wind their way onto your refrigerator, as well as the internet.

With Love and Squalor,

-z-

p.s. Bonusland headphone rockout candidshot!

Music: William Basinski - DLP 6.

[ ...we now return to "Why Amanda Rocks & She Found In Japan," already in progress: ]

2005-08-02T12:59:00.000-04:00

Now, I realize that it's probably not too hard to get ahold of this stuff at Japanese-themed ethnic grocery stores in pretty much any urban center, but it's still (totally) sweet to have a pack that came from its motherland not as a faceless member of a retail box destined for a dusty, unclean-feeling shelf under the lazily-contemptuous eye of a shopkeeper, but as an individual bundle, selected specifically by a considerate soul to cater to my undeserving face and overdeveloped oral fixation. Did I mention it was caffeinated?

Behold the wonder of the crazy symbols gracing the peculiarly-appealing packaging.

Note not only the odd number of sticks (nine?) but also the "Hi Technical Excellent Taste And Flavor." I mentioned it was caffeinated, right? I haven't looked, but I'd be willing to wager that ThinkGeek sells it for sharply-inflated prices (a la Suncoast's exploitative vending of Pocky).

Anyone know how caffeinated it actually is?

Music: Fountains Of Wayne's "Maureen," a simplistic little gem from their new B-Side compilation.

[ flow-ooh-ah ]

2005-07-06T14:01:00.000-04:00

I could blither aimlessly about how my mom obsesses about flowers, about how she probably takes solace in their beauty the same way I dripfeed music. I could wax nostalgic about how Jenn used to work at a Garden Center, and has had more flower-and-shrub knowledge hardwired than she may ever be aware of. If I felt like doing some homework, I could bore all but the nerdiest among you and explain how different soil acidities affect petal colour, and go into the chemistry thereof.

Obviously enough, I'm letting the damn things speak for themselves; they don't need my help to be spectacular, gorgeous, and growing long after we're gone.

In other news: July 4th marks my half-birthday, meaninglessly enough. D.C. puts on a stellar show every year, and we had about the best viewing location in recent memory. Obviously enough, fireworks are really hard to photograph, and not just because you're essentially taking picture of the night sky: it just feels cheap. There's just no way to convey a hundred-thousandth of the sense of being at a fireworks show. That having been said...

Music: Oddly enough, neither Deerhoof's "Flower" or Dntel's "Fireworks." Really, just more DJ Shadow.

[ and now, part one of the ongoing mini-series "Why Amanda Rocks & What She Found In Japan" ]

2005-07-02T15:08:00.000-04:00

I suppose it may have been wise to save this particular bit of cultural glory for the Series Finale, but I'm perfectly willing to admit that a product this amazing doesn't give you a lot of choices in general.

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the International Association of Snark, Kitsch, and General Absurdity, I give you The Greatest Candy Ever To Exist:

Compare the image of a Random Immigrant Child's face beaming with delight upon presentation of a tasty treat to a Typical American Brat in a grocery store, throwing a shit fit upon their screamed demands for a York Peppermint Patty going unmet.

...I can think of no finer candy for our charming picture of foreign innocence to be holding than a bar of Crunky.

Insofar as the candy itself, it's a bit odd; candy made from unfamiliar raw materials takes on a unique taste. The chocolate (unsurprisingly) tastes like Pocky-chocolate, though it suffers from the lack of amazing shortbread. The rice, however, is delightfully puffy, and puts our puffed rice to shame. Did you expect no less?

Music: Daniel Lanois - Sonho Dourado.

[ and now, a story in three acts ]

2005-06-28T15:34:00.000-04:00

[Act I]

[Act II]

[Intermission]

[Act III]

[Fin]

Yes, two Saturday mornings ago found me awake and in the shower at 8:40 a.m. (unprecedented! I haven't been awake that early in quite literally years) in no small part due to some stolen blankets and a healthy smack on the ass from strict-yet-loving matron/celebration mastermind Anne Major. By 9:30, a troupe of four (myself, Anne, Josh-to-the-Carp, and the cause of belated celebration himself, pictured above) were in the parking lot of Cosí, waiting Anne’s return with morning coffee. Given that I’d caught a typical less-than-three hours of sleep, I requested an upscale-milkshake with 3 shots of espresso, which wound up costing our gracious hostess more than $6.

Our not-so-secret destination was the Philadelphia Zoo (which I had let slip, but which Keith had guessed at anyway, so no real harm done, right? ::sighs:: Sorry, Annie). In a regional quirk similar to New Jersey residents being unable to pump their own gas, those of us from DC are relatively unfamiliar with the idea of zoos, museums, and other such glorious pursuits of nerdery requiring payment. Needless to say, tons of pictures were taken, with Keith doing the actual photography, and myself managing to take upwards of 70 boring pictures of amazing, fascinating animals (I may post a few worthwhile ones at a later point).

A snake had made itself prominent, possibly in the hopes that a charmingly-nebbish British schoolboy would temporarily disapparate the glass that contained it (dear reader). Bred in captivity, indeed.

Music: The spectacular Boards of Canada remix of Beck's "Broken Drum," which is quite the amazing song in its own right.

[ i won't let you bury it / i won't let you smother it / i won't let you murder it... ]

2005-06-07T03:35:00.000-04:00

I suppose I should keep it simple.

The following photo was taken by Keith after the first Updog Concert in Gummere Basement. It kinda speaks for itself.

This is probably my favorite (personally relevant) picture ever.

I mean that without a trace of exaggeration. It conveys beauty without sacrificing honesty (I mean, you can see my goddamned sweat stains). We're both really, really happy in our own ways: I, manic and gleeful, and She, demure and content. This seems like nostalgia years too early, but we look so young (and carefree, no less). We were young; I don't think I'd yet turned 18 when this picture was taken, and my soul patch is notably absent.

...my, how we've grown.

Folks tend not to understand why we tried to cling to a relationship, to stay together for more than four years when we made each other so miserable so often. I offer this picture by way of explanation.

Music: Muse's Absolution is still running through my head. The album simply ate last summer, and return visits under similar conditions are enjoyable enough to make rush hour traffic bearable, no small feat (as DC residents well know).

[ i can see for miles / open your eyes / can't see what i'm living for / my head's so high... ]

2005-05-17T08:28:00.000-04:00

...or alternately, shaggy (ugh, shoot me).

Silly personal milestone: this is the most hair my head has ever sported, as (poorly) evidenced by the post-shower photo from Sunday night (the first shower after graduation, for the sentimental).

Today, it gets cut, though precisely how I'm not sure. I imagine similar happenings are taking place in Reggie's life, though given that he's had an immense head of hair for the better part of four years, one could easily understand his wussing out on total removal.

In further blogspam: obligatory cute graduation photo of me with the folks. Note the receding Bauer to my dad's 5 (possibly 5:30).

The jury's still out on graduation, though I can definitely attest to its being Too Large To Grasp. Unfortunately, I've failed to shed my terrible sleeping patterns where I picked them up, though I suppose I didn't actually step INTO my freshman-year dorm in Gummere, since it had been vacated, and was being used as a storage room. I feel like most people who leave Haverford during their freshman year live in Gummere.

For now, it's off to get my hair cut, and as always, doing my best to fight the impulse to call her, the need to tell her about every last damned detail of my retarded life, and to hear about every last detail of hers.

Music: Akufen - In Dog We Trust. The most poorly-named song to come out of this whole Micro-House thing. I hope that's not over; it fucking rocks.

[ another dippy vanity shot, only this time with rage ]

2005-05-11T08:51:00.000-04:00

Mirror shot from before the Senior Dance (I really need to clean it off). I mean, I had a much better time than this would indicate. I'm just saying that when your ex-girlfriend blocks you on AIM when you're trying to tell her that her idea of a break is your idea of a personal hell, you don't smile. When you directly ask her to stop what she's doing "for us," because you know it's not going to work, and she de-friends you over TheFacebook, and you suddenly realize that it's not about "us," but rather more-or-less exclusively her, you do not smile. You make very good use of the open bar, and you dance your ass off.

I don't doubt that I'm being unfair, but nobody's speaking on her end; my only consolation is my slowly-deadening affections and mounting outrage. It's not like I didn't tell her this was going to happen (shortly before she blocked me, no less).

Music: Explosions In The Sky - Friday Night Lights Soundtrack. When post-rock goes cinematic, it sounds like this. Or like that weak Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do EP Sigur released a while back. I haven't actually seen the movie, though I (like most of the Snob Community) finds it quite odd that our Champions of Delay Pedal post-rockers from Austin would soundtrack a movie about football. Imagine if Yo La Tengo had soundtracked Varsity Blues.

(Well, the above in addition to whatever sickeningly-upbeat ragga-inspired shite is blasting from Nick's alarm clock/radio. Wake up, dude.)

[ like i said: i love this band and everyone in it... ]

2005-05-02T23:20:00.000-04:00

...with the occasional exception of myself. ::shrugs:: Why lie? There are plenty worse fates than a perfectionist streak in constant grips with an overdeveloped sense of modesty.

As is old news to those of you who attend Haverford, Haverfest got its ass stone-cold rained out, which forced the festivities indoors, and into one of the most antithetical situations I've come across in my attempts to have fun here: Indoors is full of Walls and other such useful-against-cold-and-wind-but-restricting Barriers, which more or less runs precisely counter to the notion of Haverfest.

Far be it my right to tell everyone what Something's very Essence is, but it seems unambiguous that a right proper Haverfest is about absolutely everyone being in the same spot at once, enjoying themselves, relaxing, and just having the freedom to see and move to wherever and whomsoever they please.

Clearly, not the case last Saturday. Ah well. At least JDS9 rocked the Dining Center out.

I suppose it's not remotely close to a Deal to anyone else, but I was nervous as all hell about playing guitar. For one thing, it's got MILES more room for expression (and therefore: fumbling amateurism) than the keyboards. For another, I'm woefully-inexperienced with it, this actually being my first time playing guitar on stage (quite the cringing debutante, I suppose).

Without going into some extended cultural analysis that would likely present nothing you couldn't read in some book someplace that I haven't the time to compose anyway, it's fair to say that the damned instrument is so miserably romanticized, with more image-issues associated with it than pretty much anything else ever. I mean, there's a poster in Conor's suite with Linsday Lohan (or possibly Hillary Duff...but do go on and ask whether or not I give a shit) wherein aforementioned postergirl is at a patently-glamourous lean, sporting a glitzed-out guitar, only backwards, at an impossibly-awkward angle over her shoulder (think even more awkward than Liz Phair on the cover of her recent sellout self-titled release, only not spread-eagle on the floor, you UNPRINCIPLED HACK. Welcome to No More Respect As An Artist Ever Fucking Againsville, Ms. Phair) serving no purpose at all. I recognize that it's supposed to be some manner of evocative pose, I guess, but it serves to do little more than convince the hyperthoughtful observer that this month's It-Girl simply has no fucking idea how to rock out. It could have just as well been a pair of skis.

Except that it's a GUITAR. And that's my point: that whether it be good attention or bad, a guitar will get you Noticed. There's Expectations about those things that guitar players contend with every damn day.

Hence: eyes down, hiding behind shaggy hair. So very, very shoegaze. Alternately: shy and obsessive, and hours away from a confident stage-solo.

I'm not really one for name-dropping, but I got a congratulatory hug from Shamie, which was really quite nice, given how vanishingly little we've spoken to each other, despite a lot of misfortunate commonality qua work and such (unless I'm simply being mawkish and presumptuous, in which case, oops). Seeing Allison at the concert was likewise most-pleasing, as lame as her AIM-style is. [/deliberate barb]

...as always, I'm just glad everyone had a good time. God knows I did.

Music: Franz Ferdinand - Auf Achse.

"You see her, you can't touch her / You hear her, you can't hold her / You want her, you can't have her / You want to, but she won't let you..."

[ today, the campus sleeps in ]

2005-05-02T08:59:00.000-04:00

Yet Another Sunrise over Lloyd Green as Yet Another All-Nighter moves into daylight hours. The next two weeks will see the coming and going of final exams, a week of supposedly worry-free celebration for the Senior Class, and a host of proud, overdressed parents watching their children's symbolic walk into post-Collegiate life. This Thesis isn't moving fast enough, Electronics Lab was sorely neglected, and both need passing if I hope to join you all.

I really, really hope I make it.

People ought not to leave their glasses lying around, unless they don't mind my putting them on and taking dippy pictures of myself wearing them. I sincerely hope never to need a pair, but it's some solace to know that I won't look too terrible if I do.

Music: Dntel - (This Is) The Dream Of Evan & Chan. The one featuring Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Emo-Pop. The one that inspired the now-quasimainstream Postal Service side project between the two artists. The one that brought Death Cab into some degree of prominence.

Jesus, do I need a backrub.

[ ...can't get the stink out / it's been hanging around for days... ]

2005-04-29T22:54:00.000-04:00

Our Scene: a casual portrait of the liberal-arts-debauchery-amidst-natural-splendor of Haverfest, as exemplified by the crowd in front of Lloyd 10s.

Myself: twenty feet down the path, murmuring brokenly along to "Mother" (played at the actual maximum volume of my MP3 player: 40) through Yet Another Fucking Cigarette, trying not to be too visibly pathetic.

...but why bother, really, if it's actually the case?

Exhibit A: this very same self-serving, emotionally-indulgent entry. With this public display of overblown wretchedness, I officially forfeit my right to turn up my nose and scoff at the LiveJournaling masses and their histrionic poetry, their woefully-predictable taste in music, and their degenerating excuse for written English: in spite of my phenomenal taste in music, implacable self-restraint with regards to poetry (and indeed, self-expression in most potentially-attacked forms...ah, the cowardice of the critic), and borderline-pretentious writing (at best, really), I, in this archived moment, bereft of perspective, am not a shred better than they are, not an iota more worthwhile a human being.

Amanda: "How does it feel to be better than everyone else at almost everything?"
Myself: "...worthless. Absolutely worthless."

********

These five empty cigarette boxes are, well, recent. I can't date them all, but it's a safe guess to say that they're all from within 3-4 weeks of now. Given that the unopened sixth is already more than half-done, it's reasonable to estimate the number of cigarettes I've smoked in the past month at over 100, in spite of how many I've gladly given away. Monetarily, that amounts to $38.76 spent "committing honorable suicide," as it were (as always, reference points up for grabs). That would have easily covered a trip to New York City, a non-trivial irony, given the Relationship Circumstances amidst these packs, these hundred-odd self-mutilative prayers for Change and Self-Improvement.

Here's where I break a rule and talk about more than just the pictures in and of themselves: the hollow Haverfest, the days of desperate, unnecessary sleep and nights of procrastinatory solitude, the literal scores of missed classes, the chain-smoking, the uncountable sticks of sugarless gum and cough drops, the hyper-organized music collection, and the blaring headphones exemplify (among other things) my Avoidance, my chief flaw, my route of flight to some washed-out Elsewhere. Barring today's work on my thesis and a few negligible spots of work, I haven't touched my life in weeks, a cycle most vicious indeed. I struggle to return to the worst mess I've ever faced, to break habits scratched deep into an exhausted psyche, to stay above water, to Finish and walk away relieved, if nothing else...

...to Just Keep Fucking Breathing.

I'm Sorry.

Music: David Bowie - Conversation Piece.

"...and my essays lying scattered on the floor / fulfill their needs just by being there / and my hands shake, my head hurts, my voice sticks inside my throat / I am invisible and dumb, and no-one will recall me / and I can't see the water through the tears in my eyes..."

...naturally, I'm not crying. You know The Story.

[ lest we forget the tale of the bandroom organ... ]

2005-04-29T04:08:00.000-04:00

Fuck you, it's ours, we shoved it into the teensy fucking backseat of Rosemary's car in the fucking rain after some band called Ariel Pink shouldered us out of a fucking concert, it's ours, fuck you.

By all accounts, this picture should not exist. This organ has no business being successfully confined within the volume available to it. And yet, its presence in the backseat of the car would directly contradict all we consider sensible. Note that Lewis' presence fails to preclude that of the organ, the skinny fuck.

Sentimental, but true: I love this fucking band.

Music: Peter Gabriel - Here Comes The Flood. The very stylistic opposite of music I enjoy, but simply amazing enough to warrant my respect and appreciation.

"Drink up, dreamers / you're running dry."

[ coming soon to a recycle bin near you! ]

2005-04-27T09:11:00.001-04:00

I congratulate you, Katherine Cheng, for taking The Worst Picture of me that exists in a digital format. Not even Jenn's macro-mode shot of just my greasy, enormous nose matches this in terms of being as monumentally unflattering when humor wasn't the picture's original intent.

The former titleholder is featured below:

Note, if you will, the single hair prominently featured at the edge of the sunlit strip of grease along my nose. A wonderfully-terrible picture indeed, but simply not awful enough to hold on.

Music: Pink Floyd - See Emily Play.

[ hello, indeed ]

2005-04-27T07:53:00.000-04:00

In this age of superboredom and hypermediocrity (name the reference, kids!), one Jane Avakov suggested (nay, demanded) that I install Google's "Hello" pic-chat program, which has a quick-update feature that allows for photoblogging with the relative ease and identical aesthetic to an AOL chatroom; it falls to me to ensure that this new picblog (created for the occasion in a fit of why-the-fuck-not) doesn't fall into the same mire of inanity. I mean, it doesn't even allow for the inclusion of line-breaks: you hit enter, and there the fucker is, sitting on your external representation of yourself. Photo. Caption. DONE.

Pfegh. Hardly.

The idea is to create a more momentary, impulsive space that's less text-driven (and thus prone to my odd brand of avoidant perfectionism) and more snapshot-like. We'll see how long it goes without something deliberately appalling (e.g., Goatse), since I'm so fucking hilarious.

...and now, viewers of The Daily Show and troglodytes alike, your moment of Zen:

"...say simply, very simply, with hope: good morning."

-Maya Angelou, Inaugural Poem.

Composed for and read at Bill Clinton's Inauguration in 1993, and (more salient in my memory) played in the introduction to the version of Microsoft Encarta '95 that came with my first non-DOS computer, of all fucking things.

Yep, hardly any text at all. Off to a fine start, I see.

Music: U2 - Running To Stand Still.