Archives : all posts by Dan

Blonde Redhead - "No More Honey"

Edmund was breaking into Alison's house. They hadn't spoken, not face-to-face, in a year-and-a-half. They'd seen each other in the sides of their eyes, in the peripheral run-off of looking at their son Frank. But not face-to-face. And now Edmund was putting a garden stone through the back porch window. "Paid for that window anyway," he thought, as he wrapped his jacket around his hand and cleared out the jagged edges from the frame. He pushed his body carefully through the opening and was suddenly reminded of his stomach, bloated from beer and not much else. It was hard to tell when he'd started to sweat; was it after five minutes of struggling in the window opening, wondering how his legs must look out the back? or was it the very minute he decided to come to the backyard with bad intentions? Finally his gut, which was now compacted into his body like overpacked luggage, let loose over the edge of the frame inside and his legs crumpled in a paralyzed slump to the floor. Edmund rose with a kind of triumph particular to the slow-boiled criminal: little victories, the clear-and-present-fuck-you. He was in, and he could do whatever he wanted, for a little while.

[Buy]

Trans Am - "Night Shift"

You can always tell a replicant because they don't care about breathing. When all is quiet and calm and the fires have died down and the waters rinse the streets, you, a human, can feel yourself breathing. You watch your stomach rise in front of you and even if you don't think it in words, you think it in shapes "ahh, old friend". It's a calm reminder of your animal nature, it's a comfort to re-understand you are never truly at rest. But a replicant does not need to breathe, it merely simulates the rising and falling of the chest to resemble life. And that, for me, is how I've always been able to tell. When it's quiet, look in their eyes, and see that they don't appreciate for one second they're able to inhale the atmosphere. Their electric breath means nothing to them. It's mere decorum. Like a curtsey.

[Buy] | (image by
Tetevi Teteh)

Owl John - "Stupid Boy"

There is no faster way to grow up than to watch candlelight be overtaken by the light of dawn. Every bit of punctuation in life's run-on sentence seem;s placed randoml,y and is simply a shrug that says "it's time to go." And if you charted all of summer's endings and all where-were-you-whens, the unceremoniousness would sag the axes. The news is so bad, the world is on fire, but not right here.

[Buy]

Frog Eyes - "A Duration of Starts and Lines That Form Code"

Glue on the end of a domino. On the end of a postcard, on the tip of a chair, a standing leaf. Stacked diagonally, end to end, making a flight of misshapen stairs. Thousands of things stacked end to end, and climbing: a piece of broken sidewalk, a whole subway rail, a playing card, a floor lamp, a shoe. It makes one thin line stretching into the sky, and when it rains there is a speckled splatter beneath, it looks like a great weeping tree. It's unclear who built it (one wouldn't ask who built the rivers) or how it's supported (magnets?) but there it is, with a book in the middle, titled "The Explanation of the Staircase", pinched closed in such a way that to open it would make the stairs fall. There is often a man ascending and descending, counting the stairs as he goes. [Buy]

PS I Love You - "Bad Brain Day"

There is something floating outside my window and it could be a ghost or a hornet. It seems to tap its face against the glass, like it knows I'm in here. It doesn't give up, which could still either be a ghost or a hornet. A ghost is persistent, a hornet is dumb. It would be a mistake to fall in love with a hornet, and a mistake to still be in love with a ghost. In a world where everything is touch-sensitive, it would be a mistake either way to love a ghost or a hornet. [Buy]

--

Come with me to the Drake tonight to see Frog Eyes and PS I Love You. I'll be leaving in a few minutes.

Michael Cera - "Clay Pigeons (Blaze Foley cover)"

This buzzes like sugar in evening heat. It turns the whole world to middle distance. It brings old photos to the surface of your skin. It travels, and flits its fingers through leaves. It dapples, sways, okay? okay.

[7$]

Naomi Punk - "Eon of Pain"

Mikey. A leather-wrapped shaven beanpole, with a smile like a bad carrot. Mikey walked in two halves, legs and shoulders, each on their own separate walk. He stooped like he was always in a low ceiling, perhaps as practice. His clothes were filthy, his bedroom floor looked covered in candy bar wrappers. Mikey ate three meals a day, all cigarettes. As a result, his voice seemed to be missing a few frequencies, he'd smoked them away, it sounded discordant, unbalanced, like a wobbly table in a diner. Mikey looked like God was sculpting kids to go to Lincoln Seconday, but had used all the clay by the time he got to Mikey, and all he had left were french fries and energy drinks.

He slumped typically into music class. Mr. Ferguson's General Music with the steps built into the floor and headed to his seat. "You can't wear that many rips in your pants," said Ferguson, in his standard fresco: Morning Fleece with Bagel. And I remember so clearly what Mikey turned to him and said. He turned his head like it were a UFO and shot back, "I'm not wearing the rips, the rips are empty space." I think it was 8:45 in the morning.

[Buy]

(i'm abroad and can't upload, apologies for the stream)

I see a mini-skirt and hairy legs doing a lean-back creep.
I see the ground is lava.
I see a sewer grill smile with nothing to lose.
"Drugs, hugs, and giant bugs" sloppy rushed in paint.
Steam pillars and neon domino. Hard to see if this restaurant serves food, the menu looks like an airplane safety pamphlet.
In this place, there's no distinction between friend and enemy, it's the same damn word.

[Hani Zahra's 2013 album Along Those Lines is still available]

"A Malaise" is new Hani Zahra, we'll have more updates soon about an exciting new album from them.

***

And on the topic of makeup tests, friend of the blog Kayla Lorette is funding her short film on indiegogo. Normally, of course, I wouldn't trouble you with crowdfunding because it's the way we raise our site costs and it can be annoying as heck, but this has a great pitch video, and I trust the filmmakers fully to make a great piece, even if they're asking for quite a bit. Check out the project, if you like the makeup work, if you like Julian Richings, or if you like Kayla from Space Riders, maybe consider dropping a few dollars, the perks are pretty neat too! Tote!