In Williamsburg we don't have VIP lines (except when we do)

I can't believe I am two weeks behind on sharing this, but HOLY CRAP JENS LEKMAN!  That is to say: I saw him live a couple Fridays ago at Music Hall of Williamsburg and it was just as dreamy and wonderful as I thought it would be.

Before I continue to pour out fangirl emotion though, I have a serious confession to make: I almost FORGOT about the show!  Let me repeat that: I had a ticket for a sold-out JENS LEKMAN show and I almost FORGOT TO GO.  I am so ashamed.  And also worried that something is eating holes in my brain.  To be a teensy bit fair to myself, I purchased the ticket way back in August but never put on any sort of calendar - I just trusted I'd remember such an important date.  I had to work until 8:15 that day so I had a subconscious plan to dress hip enough for work so I could just jet to the show afterward.  Well... nope.  Totally forgot.  It wasn't until I was on my last 15 minute break at work, around 7pm, that I was reading show listings on Oh My Rockness and saw Jens Lekman listed and then felt cold dread and panic wash over me.  I convinced a manager to let me leave a little early, rushed home to change, then jumped in cab to the 'burg.  I got there with just enough time to catch the last two songs of opener Geoffrey O'Connor (kinda weird) and down a whiskey (hallelujah).  That can never, ever, EVER happen again.

BUT anyway: awesome show.  As much as it's always more fun to go to shows with other people, the advantage to going by myself is that I can very easily nudge my way to the front.  I didn't make it right up to the stage but I got about fifteen feet away, which was luckily within range when Jens threw confetti during "Opposite of Hallelujah" - yes, CONFETTI!  In addition to that crowd-pleaser, he also played a bunch more of my faves, including "The End of the World is Bigger Than Love," "Maple Leaves," "A Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill" (which he ended by leaning the microphone against his heart - awww the adorableness) and his new single "An Argument With Myself."

The best part was most definitely the beautifully acoustic final encore where he played the mournful-but-sweet "Black Cab" and organized a sing-along for "Pocketful of Money."  That last bit was a great way to go out - I confess that "Pocketful of Money" has never been up there in my list of Jens favorites, but when he got the balcony and the floor levels to sing the overlapping parts ("You set my heart on fire"/"I'll come running with a heart on a fire") it transformed it into something more... magical. 

Good god, I need to stop writing blog posts at 2:30 in the morning.  You get the idea.  Come back soon, Jens.

(PS: In my haze of post-paranoia and pure happiness, I completely forgot to snap some photos with my phone.  I always feel kinda weird doing that anyway.  So all of these are from Brooklyn Vegan - be a doll and read their whole article here.)

ALIVE... AGAIN

I'm five years alive today.  Thanks, body!  Now let's go be alive... and drink some blood....

It's all happening

Yet another article on Flavorwire has thrown me into a never-ending internet wormhole of procrastination.  Jason Bailey - himself inspired by Martin Scorsese's latest documentary on George Harrison - recently posted this amazing essay about Scorsese's perfect use of music in his films and how, for some of us, those songs will forever be tied to those particular scenes.  I'm always a sucker for a good montage, slo-mo, or beautifully scored piece of film so all these carefully curated clips were like nerd candy.  I literally got out my chips and hummus and Chick-O-Sticks, pulled a chair up to my laptop, and watched every part of every clip.  SO GOOD.  (Although, just to push my glasses up my nose about it, I also would have included the "Atlantis"/Billy Batts scene as particularly... touching.  HA.)

It got me thinking about a bunch of non-Scorsese movies that have similarly well-placed music.  There are so many songs that have been changed for me just by seeing them linked to a great moment of film.  And because I want to nerd this out to its full potential, I'm need to share my feelings with the internet.  Ranking things in order of importance stresses me out so I'm just going to share this list in no particular order.  Get ready for... THE FIVE BEST-SCORED MOMENTS IN FILM (for now):

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - "Life On Mars?"

It's so hard to put just one Wes Anderson moment on this list but I'm trying to be concise.  This is the movie that made me fall in love with David Bowie.  I mean, yes, DUH, I liked David Bowie before this, but the winter of 2004 was the moment I LOVED David Bowie.  And the moment that made me forever want to smoke a joint in slo-mo when I hear this song.  (OK, and because I can't hold it in: other close Wes Anderson contenders are "These Days" in The Royal Tenenbaums and "A Quick One While He's Away" in Rushmore.)

Summer of Sam - "Baba O'Riley"

One of my film professors in college showed us this sequence as an example of montage - pretty extreme choice, if you ask me.  I guess it's a solid representation, since it heightens the action of the movie, but DAMN is everything fucked up.  Try watching Adrien Brody in this movie and then watching The Pianist.  Your brain will hurt.

Donnie Darko - "Head Over Heels"

This entire movie is full of great, dark, late-80s ballads and slo-mos but this Tears for Fears scene tops them all.  Something about Roland Orzabal's mournful voice makes it so perfect for a dizzy tracking shot full of angsty teachers and kids.  Also: I still really want to be in Sparkle Motion.

Boogie Nights - "Jesse's Girl"

I love it when a film takes a catchy pop song and makes it terrifying (prime example: Quentin Tarantino forever ruining "Stuck in the Middle With You").  Coked-up dudes with guns PLUS this weird kid throwing firecrackers PLUS the crescendo-ing Rick Springfield beats all make me want to clutch a stress ball throughout this whole scene.

Almost Famous - "My Cherie Amour"

Of course the "Tiny Dancer" scene would be the obvious choice here (and is still a great moment), but this overdose-as-love-scene breaks my heart a little more.  William's just oozing love for Penny while she's getting her stomach pumped!  And Penny's wearing an amazing dress! (Also: total nerd moment, but see where they're walking by that pond at the end?  I eat lunch there all the time.  No big deal.)

Give me some more ideas so I can go on another YouTube tangent!  (And so I can know that people actually still read this!)  Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go watch every Scorsese movie ever made.  OK BYE!

(PS: special thanks to Dave for letting me know that I've been spelling "Scorsese" incorrectly... for my entire life.  The shame!!)

But I thought she said maple leaves

I know there aren't many other people out there who dread fall like I do so it's extra-nice to know that Jens is on my side:

This time of year is the saddest time of year. It is the end of the summer, the time when your boyfriend or girlfriend is moving to Berlin or New York or London and says "I just don't want the responsibility that comes with a relationship, I really need to be free right now".

And you hate the future, you want to throw rocks and empty beercans at it. You hate the changes it brings. You're late for uni, your first class of the semester, and you wish you hadn't cut your own hair two days before you started. And you think of the days getting darker and on your way home you kick the gold out of the leaves on the ground. You ride the buses and trams and trains in circles. You put chewing gums on elevator buttons.

At night you can't sleep so you go out and it's a starlit night so you sit and watch the constellations up there, and then a meteor divides the sky in two and you think of one thing to wish for but there are so many things.

I am reading your emails and I may not have time to reply to all of them, but I just wan't you to know that I've been there too. I'm there with you right now.

Maybe I just need a nice sweater.

I've got love for you if you were watching TV in the 90s

Anyone else want to feel like they're nine years old again?



I mean.... shit.  There is so much nostalgia packed into those three minutes and forty one seconds that I had to re-assess my surroundings after I watched it because I thought I might actually be sitting on my purple beanbag in my old living room on a Saturday morning.  I would kill to be wearing Melissa Joan Hart's polka-dot headband and eating Cookie Crisp right now.

Also: how is it that I always forget to bring the trash outside on trash day but I can still sing the entire Animaniacs theme song?  I weep for my generation.

BALLLLLLLLLLLLLLIN!!!

OK: let's acknowledge the fact that I've been so lazy about this blog that I've let a good two months breeze by without a peep about my (not at all exciting) life - to the extent that I even forgot my blogiversary AGAIN.  I don't even have cupcakes laying around that I can pretend I baked in celebration (but daaaamn I wish I did.)  Well, OK, here's a photo of some cupcakes I baked four months ago because I was being a fatty and really wanted peanut butter cake with chocolate icing:

Yay fatty blog!  But what is there to say about six years anyway?  I mean, I was a pretty rad six-year-old (braid-ponytails-on-the-side and sparkly sweaters, whatwhat!), but in the grand scheme of life it's like, meh... six.  Maybe I'm just feeling cynical.  And still lazy.

(Oh, an aside about the word "lazy": I'm determined to reclaim it as a cool thing.  Remember when phones weren't smartphones and were just "cell phones?"  I know, those were crazy times, right?  And some people still have them!  Anyway: one of the best precursors to auto-correct was the T9 word function, where you would just furiously type away on the number pad and the phone would "know" which letters you meant to type.  My old phone was the best at this because every time I tried to type the word "lazy" it would default to "jazz" - resulting in sentences like "I'm too jazz to get off the couch" and "stop being such a jazz ass."  So much cooler, right?  So don't be lazy, be JAZZ.)

But let's get back to my life.  Yesterday was a crazy day: I had to work at 7am, there was a minor earthquake that got all of NYC's panties in a twist, AND - thanks to Kottke - I discovered this amazing website.   It's a collection of stories by Questlove, sorted by name, in which he recalls encounters with different celebrities, as requested by other readers.  What makes them so amazing is not just the way they are written (which is as if he typed directly from a dictation of himself), but the kind of crazy celebrity shenanigans he gets into.  And I'm not talking like, action movie buddy cop craziness, but over-the-top displays of money that must just seem totally normal once you hit a certain level on the star meter.  The story about Will Smith's leather-floored mansion tops everything, but rollerskating Prince (part of the Eddie Murphy story) is a close runner up.  I mean.... GOD. DAMN.

Questlove: please come to a Moth StorySlam.  It would be the best six minutes of everyone's life.

PS: As a bonus, I discovered this site linked to the Questlove one: The 90s Rap Name Generator!  Mine's "Big M Da' Slim Pimp" - but you probably already knew that.

Hey ladieeeees!

It's a little crazy how many new artists I've discovered solely by watching the music video channels at Crunch while plodding along on the treadmill.  Do they secretly have some kind of deal with fledgling record labels?  You'd think this would make me go to the gym more often but... no.

Here are two of my new faves: lady rappers!




Also: isn't weird how both of their videos open with shots of the street and trucks?  SO URBAN.