“Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Picture from here.
Tag Archives: Music
Sex (I’m A…).
Yesterday…
from here.
…I discovered not what I’d call my favorite new twitter account, but certainly my favorite new weird twitter account: OMG Facts SEX. It’s an offshoot of a site called OMG Facts, and there’s other categories as well, including: OMG Facts ANIMALS, OMG Facts CELEBS, and OMG Facts SPORTS. Be careful not to mix all four of those together or you might have a real party on your hands.
Here are some selections from the OMG Facts SEX twitter…
from here.
White women with a college degree are the most receptive to anal sex. 30% of U.S. males have had a homosexual encounter. Outside of the bedroom, the most common place for adults in the U.S. to have sex is the car. A woman’s least favorite spot for sex is the car. Nearly a quarter of mental health professionals have had sexual contact with their patients. Masturbation is more common among white-collar workers than blue-collar workers. Otters can get herpes. Rasputin was famous for having a 13 inch penis.
from here.
Condoms as we know them didn’t appear until 1878. 1 in 4 women can’t name all of their past lovers. The punishment for bestiality in the Middle Ages was for both you AND your “partner” to be burned at the stake. Leonardo da Vinci was bi (probably). When a single women and a married man have an affair, 70% of the time the man ends it. The word “gymnasium” comes from the Greek word gymnazein which means “to exercise naked.” A male fetus is capable of an erection in the last trimester. Redheads are the least popular call girls.
from here.
The name Venerial Disease comes from the latin phrase meaning “the sickness of Venus” (goddess of love). Women are most likely to want to cheat when they are ovulating. Most turkeys and giraffes are bisexual. The average speed of ejaculation is 28 miles per hour. Sex is a natural antihistamine, it can help combat asthma and hay fever. During 30 minutes of active sex, the average person burns around 200 calories. When women orgasm, the areas of the brain associated with fear shut off. One in every four Americans is “too tired” to have sex.
In Nevada, prostitution is only legal in towns with a population of less than 2000. Women who went to college are more likely than high school dropouts to enjoy giving oral sex. 34% of first kisses happen at a party. Mariah Carey likes to wear her shoes in bed while having sex. A Scottish study found that following sexual release, people had an easier time with public speaking. More women talk dirty during sex than men. Readers of Cosmopolitan said that they’re more turned on by music than pornography.
The blank page.
By Grant Snider, from here.
“I said your name in an empty room.”
A friend of mine emailed me a link to this song the other day…
…and with the link they included that they think about me when they listen to this song. Or listen to this song when they think about me. Whenever that happens or possibly to induce such a pattern or direction of thoughts? I don’t know. The first version works best for these purposes: They think about me whenever they listen to this song, which is “Empty Room” by the Arcade Fire from their most recent album, The Suburbs (which we’ve mentioned several times around these parts).
So, now, I am listening to this song and whenever I listen to this song I think about them thinking about me thinking about them thinking about me thinking about them thinking about me thinking about them thinking about me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Mediations.
“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”
-Ludwig van Beethoven.
Images by Julien Pacaud.
And then…
“Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.”
-Jorge Luis Borges, “The Threatened.”
from here.
Can you believe that it’s…
…already? This year is going by so fast. Or so slow, I guess, depending on how you perceive time.
Previously on Counterforce: September came and went and Peanut St. Cosmo remained chillwave as fuck. Mad Men remains easily the best show currently on TV. Movie script endings. Those three little words everyone longs to hear. Bitches ain’t shit LIVE in Nashville. They are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired. Is the omission of chocolate a racial thing? A selection from the new Criterion Classics: The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2. And it’s mirror universe opposite: New Moon. You must defend your blog from intruders. Does anybody remember August Bravo?
Also: Blog nerdy to me. Right now you should be loving yourself in this country of winners and gladiators. “There is no difference between the behavior of a god and the operations of pure chance.” Diets of shame. Imagine Hemingway and Castro getting jiggy with it. Joseph Gordon-Levitt vs. Rob Gordon. Cosmic loneliness. R. Kelly is for real, no doubt. How to determine your philosophy of life. For a short time Peanut St. Cosmo was the interim finance minister of Japan, all until that unfortunate sex scandal.
from here.
And seriously not forgetting: Obama porn, bad poetry, and nonsensical costumes. ID-4… 2? Donald Barthelme, George Saunders, and a bunch of weird Japanese kids getting into hijinks. No hugging, no learning. Italian urologists and swans used as murder weapons. Explanations are for everyone but the explorers. Something something something Patti Smith. And: The Moon.
And where do we go from here?
Anywhere you like.
“2009, 2010, wanna make a record of how I felt then.”
Right, so now each month on Counterforce, at the end of the month as that chapter closes, I find myself looking back on my posts and just wondering about all the puzzle pieces left strewn about. Some things planned, some things decidedly not planned, some accidents, some just flat out mistakes…
Sometimes your blog is both a testament to you and a museum devoted to your mistakes and victories. It can be a lovely display of all those things you loved, or hated, or sometimes a combination of the two, and usually more about yourself than anything else.
I’ll never forget that an ex once told me that “nostalgia is for people who have no future.” I found that to be a rather curious statement and when I pressed her for clarification, she told me that, to her, too many people use the mirror as a reflection on the past and only rarely on the present. I asked her what was wrong with that, in certain doses, and she responded with, “You shouldn’t have time for that. You should be moving so fast that when you pass by the mirror all you see is a blur.”
She said that and then she was gone. I felt like all I got out of that was the blur.
This relationship was a long time ago. It was short, but it felt longer, and it feels like it was longer ago than it was, but it was probably circa the first Arcade Fire album (not the EP). And now they have another album coming out.
If one of the leaked songs had been called “Month Of June” instead “Month Of May” that would’ve been a lot more convenient for my blogging concerns, thank you very much.
from here.
Real quick, two things you should know about me…
The first thing you should know about me: The other day, on twitter of all places, I was self analyzing out loud and wondered if I hold better conversations via the phone or if my stronger quality is my voicemails (which are, quite frankly, amazing)(to the point that, ladies, you would have to hold the phone away from your ear for fear that said voicemails could put you instantly in heat), you know, from the perspective of whoever the fuck it is I’m calling. Honestly… I don’t care.
But that lead me to realize: When I talk on the phone, you can tell if I’m actually active in a conversation not so much by what we’re discussing or who I’m talking to anymore, but what I’m doing physically. I mean, obviously if I’m sitting there watching TV, then I’m not listening to you, but it’s more of a kinetic thing. If I’m up, walking around, pacing, then there I’m there, I’m really a part of the thing, the process, the bullshitting, whatever. My other mode, oddly enough? Staring at myself in the mirror.
It’s weird. You could call me up, we could be having a fascinating conversation and I’ve noticed that, without thinking about it, I might just walk into the bathroom and start looking into the mirror. At myself? No. It’s hardly ever a really conscious thing. Maybe it’s self reflexive, like staring out at the horizon, only in this case, the horizon is my face and it’s a portal to a larger gateway of either the honesty or just flat out sexy bullshit that I’m going to peddle your way.
Or, maybe, by looking at myself, with a certain visually conscious part of myself shut off, I’m actually subconscious recording myself looking at myself looking at myself looking at myself looking at myself as I talk about myself looking at myself looking at myself looking at myself… in some kind infinite loop of recursive blogitude?
The second thing that you should know about me right now, right this very second is that I have every intention of making this song the jam of the summa summa summertime:
I mean, that’s my intention, but as for you? You’re so vain, you probably think that summertime jam is about you, don’t you?
More and more this blog feels like a book to me, in a way. Like you could collect it into a hot mess of an interactive coffee table curio. A book in 12 parts, chronicling the year in which we make contact. But contact with… what? Ourselves? Each other? Slow dancing in the burning hotel room that is the past? Or staring at ourselves in the mirror, reflecting on the future? Or is “the future” just another aspect of right here and now because all times are one (especially on the internet)?
All of those and more, maybe. Maybe not. But, so far, in the section of this starship/book/beast/blog entitled “June” we have so far been subjected to:
The nature of time spent having fun in all these new worlds we inhabit.
Today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and how each day is just another day.
Seeing words everywhere you look, just like a casual synesthete would.
The shape of our heads and of our favorite TV shows to come and return.
…or to leave us, as Peanut noticed, because, sadly, Party Down has apparently been canceled.
A lot of Doctor Who, a show about time and space, and just in time for this (hopefully bullshit) rumor about Johnny Depp starring in an Americanized big screen version in 2012 (of course it would be in 2012).
The oil spill and the music of this year, such as new albums by Stars and the aforementioned Arcade Fire.
Our lovers and our former lovers and the music they inspire. And schemes.
And bombs and explosions and more music.
And this:
And all accumulating to but quite possibly falling way short of a certain sense of… thisness.
But, as we already covered, tomorrow is another day. With a different mirror to look into. And a different version of ourselves reflected back in. Perhaps we’ll start to look more like ourselves as we strangely believe that ourselves should look or perhaps we’ll look like another stranger in a strange land.
The girl with 7 evil exes.
The trailer for the long awaited Scott Pilgrim movie came out yesterday. It’s based on the much loved six part graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O’Malley and stars Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Evans (the new Captain America), Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Mae Whitman, Jason Schwartzman, and like a thousand other people as well.
The film, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is directed by Edgar Wright, of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz fame. Haven’t seen Hot Fuzz but Shaun Of The Dead left me flaccid. Only saw a few episodes of Spaced. I guess Wright’s not terrible, but a little overrated, and seems to be a junior member of Tarantino’s homage trapper league. I pray that he doesn’t end up directing the next Mission: Impossible movie.
And I should point out that while I’ve only read the first entry in the Scott Pilgrim comics series, is not Michael Cera horrible casting?
Somebody, please, enlighten me on that one. I’ll probably see this movie, it seems fresh and not totally horrible, but like Where The Wild Things Are, something designed to appear magical and lure in and then capture hipsters or whatever we’re calling them these days and those who want to seem cool.
Also, will this be the film adaptation by which people have to go out and read the original material, like Watchmen, and act like they were always down with it?
And, honestly, all of that’s fine with me as long as I don’t have to endure Michael Cera fingerbanging somebody again.
Mad linkage:
“Music is replacing religion,” says academic.
Will Broken Social Scene be able to “recapture the magic?”
13 year old prodigy is being discriminated against because of his age. Geek.
Possible explanation for ghosts: The “Stone Tape” theory.
The ten worst jobs in science.
The most beautiful death of Aldous Huxley.
David Mamet sends a memo to his writers on The Wire.
The world’s most feminist country? Motherfucking Iceland, yo.
Chicago architects to design the world’s tallest building to be built in Saudi Arabia.
Brie Larson, who plays Envy Adams (the character based on Emily Haines) in the Scott Pilgrim movie.
See?
Are serials losing forward momentum with television audiences?
Speaking of which, 24 is officially cancelled.
Obama tells the GOP to suck his dick, re: health care reform.
Roger Ebert producing new movie review show. RIP At The Movies.
China’s female astronauts must be married mothers. That wouldn’t be the case in motherfucking Iceland.
John Kerry’s regrets about John Edwards.
Du Pacque “Walk Straight“
“And this I know, his teeth were as white as snow.”
The postal service is moving closer to a five day delivery schedule.
Only slightly related, I don’t think the other Postal Service will ever put out a second album.
How to get chatroulette girls to flash their boobs.
Ben Lyons raped and killed a girl and her name was Pauline Kael.
Peter Biskind, Steven Spielberg, Jaws and “Bruce.”
Is it better to cheat with normal girls or “trashy girls?”
Extinction events that almost wiped out humans.
The night time you say forever…
Breakfast pizzaCarrying a gun increases your risk of getting shot and killed.
Finally have something in common with Peaches Geldof.
Psychologist invents butt bra.
Kid Cudi “Pursuit Of Happiness” (feat. MGMT, Ratatat)
Oral sex to blame for rise in head and neck cancer?
Lesbian Holocaust memorialVienna boy’s choir sex scandal, by Roger Boyes.
Interview with Atom Egoyan.
Butch returning for a sequel, minus Sundance.
The hubble telescope confirms that the universe is getting bigger, faster!
Ready to be heartbroken.
From Phonogram: The Singles Club #6 (out of 7), by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie:
from here.
Also interesting, to me at least, is this lovely blog here, How Fucking Romantic, about illustrating short stories based on The Magnetic Fields‘ 69 Love Songs, a favorite album of mine. Just awesome stuff.
List-o-mania, part 1: While you wait for the others.
It’s such a weird time of year, as it starts getting colder in most places, probably especially in our hearts and in our memories, and yet we cast our gaze ever backwards, trying to search our sonic amusements from the past year for value. What was important. What was worthy of being called “the best of” this odd little year that was.
I could wait forever for your answer and you could wait even longer for someone else’s answer, but here’s mine. I hope other members of Counterforce will pipe in at some point with albums/singles/music they valued in the past year, especially as we start cutting up everything of pop culture into lines to put in lists and snort up. But this is my picks, music-wise, albums either released or leaked into the blogosphere and my world this year, split unnumbered into three categories: The Best Of and Somewhere In The Middle and Albums That Let Me Down This Year. That’s probably about as clear as I can be with categories. Now, let’s take a look back…
THE BEST OF:
Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest.
Broadcast, Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age.
As I’ve seen many people say online, you might like this album if the album title alone attracts your interest. Simply put, this feels like a lovely dream pop/electronica soundtrack to a 60s horror movie about wandering sonic textures hunting down pop songs that I desperately wish was waiting out there for me to discover it.
St. Vincent, Actor.
The best album produced via GarageBand with songs inspired by Woody Allen and Disney movies ever.
Mos Def, The Ecstatic.
Fuck Buttons, Tarot Sport.
Japandroids, Post-Nothing.
Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.
Quite frankly, car commercial music has never sounded this good.
mewithoutYou, It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All A Dream! It’s Alright!
The Raveonettes, In And Out Of Control.
A Place To Bury Strangers, Exploding Head.
Where noise rock, shoegaze, space rock, post punk, and a truckload of dissonance all combine into a giant wall that falls down on you, crushing you. Or, exploding your head, if you will. Not a band for everyone, and definitely not an album for everyone, but if you love sonic death waves, this will be your bag.
Lisa Hannigan, Sea Sew.
I’ve been a huge fan of Hannigan’s work with Damien Rice but always disturbed that she’s been relegated to being in his backing band when her talent has always seemed up and front there with Rice’s own. And honestly, I can only watch/listen to a sad man moaning and keeping a girl down for so long. I hope this is the beginning of Hannigan conquering more and more accolades.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz.
Oh yeah, remember that this came out earlier this year? A solid album, definitely, but not totally compelling in a long term sense, but maybe nothing can be after a mountain like “Maps.” Regardless, I think this album works as a whole and still carries several excellent cuts on it. Silly though it may be, “Soft Shock” is a personal favorite of mine.
The-Dream, Love vs. Money.
Fever Ray, Fever Ray.
Beach House, Teen Dream.
SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE: Albums that are solid, but perhaps over hyped a tad. Or, albums that I like but sadly don’t love.
Andrew Bird, Noble Beast.
“Baroque pop” is how Wikipedia describes this album, and I can see it. It’s indie rock, and it’s well done, but it’s not my usual cup of tea. And I think the album reinforces that, actually, by always impressing me, surprising me with it’s mechanical beauty, but never making me feel like I am a part of it.
Mr. Hudson, Straight No Chaser.
The album is not so bad, but “Supernova,” the Kanye-produced (who also guests, of course)(and continuing his quest to either become European or just conquer European music) lead single by this British artist is my pick for what should be one of the songs of the year:
Bat For Lashes, Two Suns.
Dinosaur Jr., Farm.
Girls, Album.
Good, solid music, but not worth the hype. Praise comes too easy to some people who are not gifted with the depth of thought or true judgment.
The XX, xx.
See above, though this album has more going for it than the Girls album, I feel. Years from now, or possibly just months and days (with the way my life is going) I will quite possibly fall in love with this album. It’s simple in a way, understated, clumsy in a practiced way. There’s a nuance to it, but make no mistake: This is a album for the loneliest, horniest of hipster.
Handsome Furs, Face Control.
No longer a side project and now what feels like a good and proper musical collaboration between Dan Broeckner and his wife Alexei Perry. It fascinates me that their reference to New Order got this album delayed while it was cleared legally. There’s a beautiful rhythmic groove hatched in this album.
Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion.
This is, without a doubt, the album to take drugs to and then take your clothes off to of the year. Enjoy it with another person, but it’s still good by yourself too.
Sonic Youth, The Eternal.
La Roux, La Roux.
A shock and a revelation as far as European dance music goes. Bright, shiny, and beautifully off kilter.
Mirah, (A)spera.
…And You Shall Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, The Century Of Self.
Micachu and the Shapes, Jewellery.
Third Eye Blind, Ursa Major.
Originally entitled “That Hideous Strength,” taking it’s title from C.S. Lewis, this is a nostalgia pick that doesn’t totally betray me but there’s nothing resembling fireworks on this album. I’m probably the biggest fan in the world of their previous album and this one feels exactly like it was: six years late and the product of a long drought of writer’s block, but definitely the work of the same artist. The band will release their own version of Amnesiac, entitled Ursa Minor, at some point.
Atlas Sound, Logos.
Vivian Girls, Everything Goes Wrong.
Mastodon, Crack The Skye.
Art Brut, Art Brut vs. Satan.
It’s a crazy, fun music party until someone has the balls to challenge Satan. And this English/German indie rock band, with beautiful production by Black Francis, who take their name from Jean Dubuffet’s name for outsider art, lose to Satan, of course. But it’s a tight, clean, and highly listenable loss.
Metric, Fantasies.
Amy Millan, Masters Of The Burial.
The Antlers, Hospice.
Florence And The Machine, Lungs.
The album is decent enough, but all you really need to know is the song, “Dog Days Are Over.” Give it a listen and then tell me if I’m wrong.
ALBUMS THAT LET ME DOWN THIS YEAR: Maybe they’re not terrible, maybe they have some strong points, but like I said, they let me down.
Doves, Kingdom Of Rust.
A Sunny Day In Glasgow, Ashes Grammar.
U2, No Line On The Horizon.
Still the biggest band in the world, no matter how much it upsets your stupid sensibilities. The sad thing about being on the top though is that you can only fall down.
Julian Casablancas, Phrazes For The Young.
I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t expect much from Casablancas. This album isn’t horrible by any means, but never lives up to the possibility you felt in it’s lead off single, “11th Dimension.” The rest of the album, which references Oscar Wilde in it’s title, feels like a few normal rock songs with extra silly production layered onto them by Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis. If I was in junior high, or at least floating around somewhere in the first few years of high school, I would probably think this was the greatest thing ever and might request it at a dance or something. And possibly adding insult to injury, I give you the song (which I actually like quite a bit) by Courtney Love that’s about Casablancas:
The Boy Least Likely To, The Law Of The Playground.
Brand New, Daisy.
Better Than Ezra, Paper Empire.
Another nostalgia pick. BTE, actually, used to be my favorite band. It’s a long story, one that started with a girl, but thankfully, at the end of the story I was left with the better of the two: the music. Now I feel like I don’t even have that. For a band that that mines a brand of “cool” and “joy” that is wonderful and easy to inhabit, I would easily recommend this band. Their previous album was slyly wonderful, as were all of their albums before that.
The Mars Volta, Octahedron.
I think I’m just over this. I appreciate music that sounds like you’re on drugs but I have grown to dislike the Mars Volta’s evolving sound into my needing to be drugs to find an appreciation groove in what they do.
Well, this has been my 2009 in music, for the most part. The best of, the solid and entertaining, and the stuff that let me down. There’s some highs and lows in here, as far as music released/leaked this year goes, but these are my peaks and valleys. What do you think? And what was your year in music like?
