Fuss
Topic: Ranting
After all that late night fussing over "American Car" and "Your Misfortune", I woke up this morning with "His Truth Is Marching On" stuck in my head.

No, I'm not obsessed, and I can't begin to imagine why you would think such a thing.

Also on the topic of fussing, I've been keeping half an eye on stories related to Cindy Sheehan, because I like it when the right-wing media get their knickers in a twist. The story has recently been getting fairly regular coverage on Uncommon Sense, so keep an eye on that site if you're interested in online reactions to the story. There was also an excellent, outraged post on BARISTA about the machinations of the right-wing anti-Sheehan spin -- follow the links in that story, every one of them is excellent.

Update: Maybe I'm overthinking this, but my immediate reaction on noticing that the story that Sheehan's husband has filed for divorce is front-page news on Yahoo was that this is an attempt to discredit her by playing on the antiquated idea that a husband and wife always present a united front to the world, and by extension, that if a husband withdraws his support, it must mean that the wife is doing something wrong. I don't think that arguing that it's just that she's the celebrity of the moment and is getting the full muck-raking treatment explains it, because I keep coming back to the question of why this is a news-worthy story, and the conclusion that I can't get away from is that it's newsworthy because in somebody's mind, it makes Sheehan look bad. And I'm quite sure that even if that wasn't the thought behind the posting of the story, that's the interpretation it's going to get in certain circles, and just anticipating that response makes me see six shades of red.

I have a problem
Now Playing: Mike Doughty: Haughty Melodic
Topic: Raving
It's 11:45 p.m. I have two chapters and an article to read for Social Impact Assessment tomorrow. And after listening to Haughty Melodic three times, I can't decide whether "American Car" or "Your Misfortune" is going to be my new favorite song that I'll hum under my breath over and over until some poor soul stuck sitting next to me on the tram snaps and tries to strangle me.

I should've known better than to put Haughty Melodic on tonight, but I've never believed in delaying gratification. I've been wanting to hear it since it came out in May, and MGM (current holder of the title "World's Best Brother") was finally able to make that happen. Its the first album I've listened to in years that makes me want to do nothing but lie on the floor and listen to it over and over. Most of my music collection breaks down into categories according to what it's good background music for: studying, housecleaning, retaining my sanity on the morning commute. There might be a couple songs that I'll stop everything to listen to, and replay a couple times, and that will reliably turn up on most every mix CD and playlist I create, but generally, I pop in a CD and go about my business. Haughty Melodic I want to soak in.

Some reviewers seem to think that they would've preferred to see Doughty continue in the vein of Soul Coughing's left-of-center, could've-only-come-out-of-New York sonic experimentation. Myself, much as I loved Soul Coughing, I like Doughty's turn toward a warmer, more traditional sound and more structured songwriting. Even within more conventional song structures, he hasn't lost any of his oddball sense of humor or obvious delight in playing with words. On Smofe + Smang, his 2002 concert recording, he was performing "Grey Ghost" with a "fake word" bridge because he hadn't written lyrics for it yet. Now that he has, they go: "Embracing some hard-luck citizen/ Disgraced like some strange Bob Balaban", which is perfect - obscure, precise, alliterative. The lyrics have always been the draw for me where Doughty's work is concerned, but he's a talented musician as well, and rarely runs into the problem of music and lyrics competing with, instead of enhancing, each other.

It's interesting to compare the songs that evolved from Smofe + Smang to Haughty Melodic. I haven't really followed any other songwriters closely enough to get any sense of the process of working through a song. "Madeleine and Nine" was also in development on Smofe + Smang, and I think I liked it better in it's stripped down, acoustic version. I haven't decided yet whether I prefer the plaintive "Sunkeneyed Girl" on S+S or its upbeat incarnation on HM. I'll resolve that question after I determine whether my soundtrack for the week will involve endless repetitions of the slinky, country-tinged, road-weary rasp of "American Car" or the bright piano, embracing strings, and "life's tough, but its a gorgeous day and none of that nonsense has matter for the next five minutes" atmosphere of "Your Misfortune".

I will admit that I'm outrageously biased where Doughty is concerned (see "Janine" on Soul Coughing's Ruby Vroom for the point where any objectivity I had went right out the window), and I guess it's far too late to say that I don't want to oversell Haughty Melodic, but I can't imagine that anyone who likes singer/songwriters and appreciates well-crafted, evocative lyrics, wouldn't find plenty to enjoy in Haughty Melodic.

I feel dirty
Topic: Politics
And all I've been doing is reading about the operations of Congress. Even granted that in this article in Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi is utterly and relentlessly cynical about the workings of the US government from the start, when a month of observation of Congressional activity leads him to this conclusion:

I get the strong impression that even the idealists in Congress have learned to accept the body on its own terms. Congress isn't the steady assembly line of consensus policy ideas it's sold as, but a kind of permanent emergency in which a majority of members work day and night to burgle the national treasure and burn the Constitution. A largely castrated minority tries, Alamo-style, to slow them down -- but in the end spends most of its time beating calculated retreats and making loose plans to fight another day.

Taken all together, the whole thing is an ingenious system for inhibiting progress and the popular will. The deck is stacked just enough to make sure that nothing ever changes. But just enough is left to chance to make sure that hope never completely dies out. And who knows, maybe it evolved that way for a reason.

its not hard to understand what prompted (or perhaps, just reinforced) all the bitterness and disillusionment.

When it comes to goverment, H.L. Mencken almost never got it wrong: "Every decent man [sic] is ashamed of the government he lives under."

(via Metafilter)

Ramble on
Topic: Catching up
My mother goes on vacation, and my page views drop by half. Coincidence, incontrovertible proof that my mother loves me, or am I just starting to bore you all, with the general randomness and the not posting for two weeks?

So, yeah, just three weeks into attempting a regular Friday piece, I drop the ball. Twice. But I have a really good excuse. I was kidnapped last weekend! Twice! Coerced entirely against my will into socializing with the other editorial staff of the postgrad journal I've joined until the wee hours of Saturday morning, and then to get up in the only slightly less wee hours of Saturday morning to spend the day driving around the Yarra Valley wine country with The Three Bears. Its disgraceful, really, the way people around here force me to have fun.

I didn't have my camera with me on Saturday (I'd met up with the Bear farmily intending to go to a farmer's market, have a cup of tea and chat, and go home to loll around pretending to do class work, and the suggestion to get out of the city was very much a spur of the moment one), so you'll just have to take my word for it that it was a gorgeous day and that the Yarra Valley has some really lovely views. Its all hills and vineyards and pasture land, peppered with wineries for the adults, and lots of animals for Little Bear, who was, with the boundless enthusiasm of a not-quite-three-year-old, quite happy to keep us all updated on the various sorts of livestock in the vicinity.

Other highlights of the past week included a temp job at Mama Bear's office (so nice to get a paycheck again), a third place finish in a local pub trivia quiz (a good American/Aussie balance on your team is key to pub quiz success), and a 2-hour visit to the ER on Tuesday night, after the lid of a soup can took a vicious slice out of my finger. (Which, can I just say, is not an injury that increases one's sense of competence in the kitchen. If I can't even cook soup without having some sort of crisis, I have very little incentive to attempt to move on to anything more complicated.) I didn't have to have stitches, just these funny-looking little strips to stick the edges of the cut together. I've had a fair bit of fun trying to figure out how to type without using the middle finger of my right hand, and my note-taking was near non-existent in lectures this week, but otherwise I'm fine, if rather put off soup for the time being.

Accomplishment or anti-climax?
Topic: Catching up
After three and a half years of extraordinary procrastinatory efforts on my part, I'm pleased to announce that Better Late... is finally finished. All the old dispatches are up. Except for the one I never wrote about my second trip to Turkey, which can't be posted because I never wrote it. Which is too bad, really, because that was a good trip. Maybe that will get a photo album (and be my excuse to finally get on the Flickr bandwagon, because it's about time I arrived late to another geeky web fad).

When bathroom grafitti meets a culture of attribution
Topic: Illustrated
Just a bit of the reading material scattered across the loo walls on campus.

The first week of classes is over, and it went pretty well. Tuesdays are going to be a bit rough because I start at 9:00 and don't finish until 7:15, but both of that day's classes (Gender & Colonialism and Social Impact Assessment) seem like they're going to be good. Then I've got evening classes on Wednesday (Gender, Globalization and Development) and Thursday (International Feminist Political Thought) as well. So it felt like a pretty long week by the time I finished on Thursday. But its good to have a reason to get out of bed and out of my flat on a regular basis. I was actually getting bored with being lazy. Who knew that was possible?

Just a little crazy
Topic: Raving
I was looking at some pictures that Mike Doughty posted from an outdoor gig he played in Boston recently, which reminded me that I missed Artscape in Baltimore this weekend, and I suddenly felt the strangeness of living through winter* in July. Even more strangely, I felt a deep craving for an East Coast summer.

I want to walk out my door and into a wall of hot, heavy air that sticks to my skin. I want to wonder why it is that humidity weighs down my clothes, yet impels my hair to wander far and wide from whatever style I've attempted to train it into. I want to need no excuse for lying around all day, because everybody recognizes that its just too hot to move. I want it to be summer, and I want it to be the summer I know, not the summer here that I briefly experienced when I first arrived, all dry heat and intense glare.

I remember the many little miseries of city summers. I lived through a bad one the summer after college, in a sub-let studio apartment with no air conditioner. I remember lying absolutely still in my bed night with the fan blowing directly across me, hoping I'd fall asleep before I felt the need to turn my pillow over again in a fruitless quest to find a cool spot. I remember wanting it just to be cool enough that I wouldn't start sweating as soon as I turned off the water in the shower. I remember that, when the wind did blow, it only brought in the smell of tar from the roof. And yet the summer that I love is the summer that feels like a sauna and smells like things that haven't been properly dry for days, and right now, as crazy as it sounds, I'm envying all of you who are having that summer.



*This must be qualified with the disclaimer that the season referred to as "winter" in Melbourne would barely pass muster as late fall in most places I've lived.

Why the Commerce Clause matters
Topic: Politics
This Is Not Over has an excellent post explaining why a thorough examination of John Roberts' approach to the Commerce Clause should be an issue in his confirmation hearings. The amazing Miss Alli offers both a clear explanation of a complex topic and the section title "Roberts: Strict Constructionist Or Flat-Out Toad Hater?" Awesome.

No longer content with the world
Topic: Odds and ends
...Google now stakes its claim on the moon.

Two birds, one stone
Topic: Illustrated
I recently found out about Friday catblogging, an odd little blog tradition in which blog authors devote one post on Fridays to a picture of and a short story or reflection about their cat. Bizarre. I wanna join the club! However, I have no fuzzy things living in my flat, unless something in the refrigerator has gone off. But as I have no desire launch Friday mouldblogging - if only so that Mom doesn't worry any more than she already does about my housekeeping, my eating habits, and the general state of my health - I won't go there.

I also realized that I've been spending more time writing about news and stuff I've found on the web than I have life in Melbourne, which is presumably what you, my devoted audience, are most interested in. So I thought I should incorporate that, and photos, into a regular Friday feature. I have no idea what to call it, because presumably as the semester progresses, it's going to difficult to sustain something that requires me to leave the flat to take a picture of something, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if you're subjected to at least one semi-coherent synopsis of whatever particularly bewildering bit of theory I'm wrestling with at the moment, accompanied by a photo of the stack of books on the topic that I've checked out of the library but not yet opened. Looking forward to that, aren't you?

But the semester doesn't start until next week, so this Friday you get Brunswick graffitiblogging:

Seeing this picture was one of the things that persuaded me to take my flat. The day that I saw my flat, I had already walked past three buildings with locations I didn't like, and had been in two other flats that were just appalling. I had begun to think that I wasn't going to find anything suitable that I could afford. But that afternoon, as I walked up Sydney Road, which is populated with shops ranging from thrift stores to high-end boutiques, and restaurants that run from fast food/take-away on up to reasonably swank places, with a strong emphasis on foods from the Greek/Turkish/Middle Eastern family, I began to have a hopeful feeling about the place I was on my way to see. I turned onto my street, and immediately fell in love with this bit of graffiti.

Just a few minutes later, I was being shown around my flat, in as much as there's any 'around' to be shown in a wee little studio that's smaller than the front room of my apartment in Baltimore. Although, to be fair, that front room was huge, so this place only suffers by comparison. It's plenty of room for me. Most importantly, it was clean and bright, and housed in a very well-maintained building with the most immaculate shared laundry I've ever seen. Fresh from my visits to a flat that reeked of mildew and the grungy 'villa' unit with neighbors who had insanely kitschy taste in porch decorations, I jumped at the chance to take this flat.

Part of the appeal of this graffiti is the ambiguity of the message. Another part is the reminder to slow down. My neighborhood is wonderful to stroll through in the summertime. Most of the homes have lovely little front gardens. Roses are very popular, as are fruit trees - lemon, orange, peach, and an odd-looking one that I think may be persimmon. Walking down my street as summer turned to fall, I saw for the first time how beautiful olives are as they ripen. The first sign is a soft purple blush at the bottom of the fruit, which gradually deepens and spreads toward the stem. Half-ripened olives look like they're slowly soaking up color. Its nice to have a reminder, as I walk away from the tram stop, that its good to take my time walking home to look for little things like ripening olives.