Of Montreal

So yesterday I went to the Of Montreal concert at the Showbox in Sodo. By the way, this is not going to be a concert review. Just wanted to put that out there. I have zero interest in telling you what the concert was like and using words that will simultaneously alienate you and prove to you how much I know about music. Because I don't. Know anything. About music. Alls I know is that Of Montreal was weird. That's a word my generation uses when we don't know what to say about something but we want to appear mildly culturally competent. WEIRD. But Of Montreal WAS weird. It felt like a cultural moment of sorts. A cultural moment I couldn't, for the life of me, understand. There were all of these bears, and glitter, and suggested 69ing between bears wearing glitter. I don't know.

I was told, by a friend of mine, to go out and have FUN. FUN was capitalized in the text message, and I took this to mean: you do not usually have fun at things, so please, dear god, just try to have fun.

This felt very much like a moment. Kind of like the Backstreet Boys or something, but for hipsters. A moment where a band could do anything the fuck they wanted, and get a huge response out of people. Like, people were just willing to go there. Or at least, the kids at Northwest School were willing to go there. And yeah yeah, those kids are kind of adorable but they banged their heads into my side and that's not fun for me.

Sometimes I feel like I'd experience concerts in general differently if I lived in New York City. Here, the crowd was just trying too hard to enjoy themselves. It didn't feel honest. It felt forced. It felt like everyone had read a newspaper article about the concert and was trying to feel the way the journalist had felt about the concert.

The security were huge dicks to everyone, too. This I don't understand at all. Okay, you're security, you're very large people...shouldn't that be enough for you? Like, that's a lot to get off on here. You get to shine your flashlights in people's faces. You get to check stamps on people's wrists. You get to order people around. You don't have to frown. If you're sad, okay, go on and frown. But you're obviously not sad because I saw you laughing with that girl right before you frowned and stuck your flashlight into my retinas and barked at me.

All that being said, I do enjoy about four to five seconds of every Of Montreal song on the new CD. Sometimes I enjoy even more! But usually, just four to five seconds.

I Wish More American Newspapers Sounded Like the Independent

So yesterday I was googling the words "berlin" and "gay" (I'm planning a trip) and I stumbled upon this profile of Rufus Wainwright in the Independent.

Midday in the kind of upmarket London restaurant where the waiters look like models and the chefs are busy coveting Michelin stars, and Rufus Wainwright is doing what he perhaps does best: talking about himself in highly reverential tones. To accompany his vocal patter, his knife and fork conduct an imaginary orchestra in the air while his plate of artfully designed couscous and chicory leaves lies untouched before him.

What a fucking beautiful lede. Acerbic, witty, devastatingly perceptive...check check check.

"The thing of it is," he drawls, speaking American the way Quentin Crisp spoke English, with every consonant exaggerated and every vowel extended way beyond its natural boundaries, "is that I like to tell the truth - in ev-er-y-thing. And the truth of the matter is, I really am extremely good at what I do." He laughs in his bone dry manner. "What? I should be falsely modest and pretend that, actually, I'm not that great? No, no. For me, that would never work. I am great, and that's all there is to it."

Man, Rufus is such a dick. But don't worry, the Independent interviewer puts him in his place.

Before his all-consuming arrogance and self-love threatens to suffocate this interview, let us try to put his peacock preening into some kind of mitigating context. Wainwright has just released a new album, his fifth, called Release the Stars. After maintaining cult status for the past decade, his records rarely selling more than a few hundred thousand copies (a comparatively paltry figure for someone with his profile), he wants this one to be his mainstream breakthrough, and to sell millions. In order to do this, he has to blow his own trumpet, and hard.

Here, the writer manages to critique his subject and sympathize with him. Quite a feat, indeed.

Compare this to what the Seattle Times wrote about him when he was here in July, 2007:

"You're an amazing audience ... and I'm an amazing performer!"

A packed Moore Theatre couldn't have agreed more, giving Rufus Wainwright his sixth standing ovation of the night while he and his septet linked arms, blew kisses and bowed.

The writer here just assumes we are all in love with Rufus Wainwright, and his ego deserves no extra scrutiny.

After the house lights came on, strangers beamed at each other like they'd just seen a shooting star.

Okay, yada yada, people love concerts, I get it. It's not exactly a newsflash. Seattle audiences love a big 'ol self-obsessed 'mo. I still like Britain's version better.

And Rufus? Listening to you still makes me feel like I'm living in a dramatic reinterpretation of my boringass life. So, thanks. No sarcasm intended.

Wanna Buy A "Chair"?

Thanks craigslist! Really helpful!!!

Restaurant Death List

So I have this new post where I'm writing about all the restaurants in seattle. Well, all the good ones. And I have this list of words I'm trying to avoid. Some (most) of them are really really hard not to use.

Think:

Friendly. Authentic. Well-heeled. Inventive. Creative. Traditional. Movers and Shakers. Not Your Mamma's... Fusion. Old school.

And that's just for starters..

Then there are the words you sorta have to use, like:

Local. Organic. Sustainable. Friendly. Unfriendly.

If you don't use these words, you look like you're just whipping out a thesaurus for fun and you look like a total moron.

Sasha on Blogs

Newspaper and magazine writers work in a logical key: Start here, take a little promenade and then circle back to the beginning, careful to not knock over anything on the way. This smooth revolution feels good. I need it more than I'd like to admit. But someone's got to supply the mad love and raw justice, the garbage and the free food. I hope this is what blogs do. Lusty overstatement leads to good things, and full-on commitments are a requirement of the fully engaged life, even if the commitment is to Christina Milian.

I don't just like blogs for the pub fights. I like sentences and I think blogs are a good place to find them. I like blogs with very short sentences. I like blogs with very long sentences. I like the music of the prose on a lot of LiveJournal pages, because many of the writers haven't necessarily figured out what writing means, and won't necessarily be better off when they do.

Frere-Jones in Gawker.

It's an old interview, but it provided me with insta-comfort. That last sentence kills. I know, I know...meta alert. Isn't it wonderful and altogether fascinating and insanely productive when the media talks about the media? You learn so much about the world...no, but really, I love you Sasha.

It's Okay to Cry

Video of the Day

Micro Loup from Richard McGuire on Vimeo.

The people look like alphabet soup, the city a collection of neon signs, a sort of King Kong esque plot line but all the gore is implied with little squiggly lines and chomping noises. A gorgeous French animation. Enjoy.

Yo B, This is Hot

I like how these women explode their hips, and how they sort of float around in the frame like short-wired fembots. Beyonce's terminator hand? Totally fuckin weird. And what a great, honest, self-conscious end-chuckle. The white background doesn't feel too early 90s GAP ad since there are all these spotlights and sweeping camera shots.

Damn. I'm kind of in love with this vid.

I'm Writing About Linda's

This is capitol hill's outdoor rest stop, a winking saloon / ski cabin with plastic trees and a giant paint-by-numbers mountain range.

I'm Writing About Honey Hole

A circus break room staffed by tattooed hipsters, a prop and costume shop for the weirdest play every produced.