a week ago i was struck with the urge to put pretty hate machine* into my cd player. i was a grade A nine inch nails freak in middle school and high school. i have hearing damage from listening to broken way too loud on my headphones. i actually owned one of those ridiculously large posters of trent reznor. anyways, it reminded me of the much anticipated release of the downward spiral, and the experience of listening to an album for the first time. it's probably that i have less time to fool around finding current music that matches my interests, but i haven't heard a good album in quite some time. the week downward spiral was released i was on this school trip (i was a freak, but alas, also a geek!). a fellow devotee and i convinced the chaperones to take us to the mall so we could buy it immediately. of course, in those days, the coolest thing to do was to have headphone splitters so you could share your own little listening experience. we listened to it together, sharing that profound event.

but i ramble. listening to new music for the very first time is an experience that just can never be replicated. the second and third listens through are similar to the first, but by then you know the feel of the music slithering through your ears, and it becomes closer to familiar than brand new. you can't ever regain that feeling of being shocked and delighted and surprised (and sometimes disappointed) the first time you listen to a new album. of course, listening to familiar music is good, too. it's intimate. in a sense, it can be effortless -- you don't have to think about it if you don't want to, because you already know it. but that first exposure is just about one of the most exciting things i can think of. your ears struggle to keep up with the different layers of music, and what your ear catches the first time around is never exactly what you'll hear later. the whole thing is very visceral and quite inexplicable.

the thing is that you can never quite remember how it was to listen to something for the very first time. subsequent listens change your perception, make it cloudy with memories of your other senses during repeated hearings. i remember thinking after that inaugural listen that i never wanted to listen to it again (which was very unusual at the time). i wanted to preserve that taste so the rare and strange wouldn't transform into something common and conventional. of course, i have very little willpower, so that didn't quite happen. i doubt i could ever accomplish such a feat. but, in honor of being sixteen again, i can try to listen with new ears.

* one of my top five albums. ever.

{Listening to: Ruiner - Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral}

so, charlie's angels 2 was last night, and it was so much fun! pooh on all the critics that called it a bad movie. sure, incredible, gigantic amounts of disbelief suspension were required, but in the end it was a good laugh and very entertaining. which is my main criteria for a summer flick. save the heavy brain stuff for winter, thanks very much.

plus, the zass puns were just too funny. i mean it.

howard says that sin is back in.

did i miss the memo telling me that it wasn't cool any more? people need to apprise me of the situation as it unfolds.

(apologies to all the upright sorts of people)

David Edelstein in Slate, in a review concluding that Terminator 3 sucks:

"[Claire] Danes, however, is shrill and painful to watch. She looked adorable and sexy with a touch of baby fat, but she's the latest in an endless line of young Hollywood actresses to starve herself down to the bone. Stop the madness!"

Word. The same goes for Jennifer Connelly, Helena Bonham Carter, and a number of other basically crushworthy screen women. (Claire has made some lousy script decisions since leaving high school -- Mod Squad, anyone? -- but she remains basically crushworthy.)

Compare the lovely Claire in 1996's Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet (a highly enjoyable film) with the whip-tautened version on display in this still from Terminator 3. Is this progress?

No, no, no. And it's not just to be chalked up to the passage of seven years' time, which of course none of us can help. Rather, deliberate choices are clearly being made, as in Ms. Connelly's case.

Ladies, please, with all respect: eat more cheeseburgers (or baked potato if you're veg). Drink more beer. These things are tasty and satisfying, and it's for the greater aesthetic good. You should gain about 10 pounds, and I should lose same. Deal?

Someone should also send Ann Coulter a note.

ADDENDUM: There are fairly deep waters here, aren't there? It inclines one to buy into the "media forces insane body images on young women" meme, for one thing. The only moral I can draw is the obvious one: support flicks with non-rail-thin female leads.

See, e.g., Kate Winslet. Titanic was crap -- to this day the only movie I've ever heckled -- but her zaftig presence was a measure of compensation.

sadly, i must announce that the readers' choice for movie night was overruled by some funky scheduling quirks (namely, the one person that couldn't attend took her sister to see charlie's angels over the weekend). so full throttle it is.

i am now taking votes on the fourth of july:
1. frozen pina coladas
2. a quarter keg of sam's
3. both.

Ahhh! The massive project is finally out the door -- it turned out well, I think -- and breathing is eased. I'm now hoping for a brief spell of Cal Coolidge normalcy.

Here is a short list of things to be grateful for, some frivolous, some not:

1. It's summer, it's warm, which is great for a change. You can walk the streets at lunch time, iced tea in hand, taking in the surprisingly various crowd of fellow office building inhabitants in their sunglasses, dresses, jeans and slacks.

2. Etienne Gilson's The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy remains in print (Notre Dame, 1991) and is easily obtained.

3. There is New Zealand sauvignon blanc to be drunk. It is strikingly fresh and eye-opening wine, full of lime and passion fruit and greens and herbs. Yes, I know I'm a Bobo. Kind of. A sorely conflicted one. But delicious is delicious.

4. "Monday Morning Rock" has the best, most indelible chord changes of any pop song.

5. Volume 0:5 of Neon Genesis Evangelion was on TV last night, if you were over at my apartment when I had the DVD on.

so, yesterday afternoon i took a trip to see a gallery exhibit -- Influence, Anxiety and Gratitude.

it was, um, interesting. after you got over the shock of the virtually pornographic images, you could understand it, and the ideas the exhibit presented were really provocative (in a non-dirty way), but some of the stuff was pretty close to raunchy. like the female artist who took pictures of herself wearing a strap-on.

after reading stealing the mona lisa, i have had more art & freudian crap than i care to think about. (btw, i don't particularly recommend the book unless you are really into art theory and/or freud & lacan.)

if you're a modern art lover, check out the exhibit before july 6 (when it closes).

{Listening to: Here Comes The Rain Again - Eurythmics - Eurythmics Greatest Hits}

i can't quite figure out what this is, but i think i like it. (psst - try an about page)

{Listening to: Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine - The White Stripes - Elephant}

i was going to pick a random blog for the day, because i can, but the first one i picked (randomly, mind you) is in japanese.

that just doesn't seem right.

{Listening to: Control - Traci Lords - 1000 Fires}

they wrote an article about me and my friends!

{Listening to: Dimentia 66 - My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - 13 Above the Night}

Alice asks where I am, and I answer: in one of the fierier sections of Job Purgatory, from which I should emerge exhausted (with soul cleansed?) tomorrow. Thus it's not Job H*ll.

Despite my hopes of redemption, the ratio of covering paper to underlying wood on my desk currently resembles the ratio of meringue to fruit filling in one of those domed slices of lemon pie you can get at Midwestern coffeeshops frequented by state troopers.

As for Alice's post about lawyers at their desks who never speak to non-lawyers, it has no ironic relevance whatsoever, why do you ask?

"Fierier" is a cool word.

{Was listening at 2 a.m. this morning, while checking cites, to: Little Wild One (No. 5) -- Marshall Crenshaw -- This is Easy}

just letting you know that you are special.

{Listening to: Piggy - Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral}

i've decided to let you people vote on my most crucial decisions.

movie night:
1. die another day on dvd at home
2. charlie's angels: full throttle at the theater.

quickly, people! don't be shy!

{Listening to: When Doves Cry - Prince - The Hits-The B-Sides-Disc 1}

who said online dating had anything to do with legal services?

no, no, this is all wrong. it now means all the losers lawyers who didn't make their ultimate catch by the bar exam and are stuck slaving away in their firm offices have an actual chance of meeting a non-lawyer. some of my friends are reaching serious depths of despair as everyone else gets hitched.

psssssst. kylie in honor of plainsman. where are yoooooooo?

{Listening to: Can't Get You Out of My Head - Kylie Minogue - Fever}

and it only took 15 days to get the top spot on google for "microcenter sucks."

the beauty of subdomains!

{Listening to: Living in a Bubble - eiffel 65 - Europop}

i find that my enlarged liver interferes significantly with blogging.

that is all.

{Listening to: Living in a Bubble - eiffel 65 - Europop}

the cake was in the microwave, beckoning to me each time i walked by it. i finally gave up and ate it, liberating some ice cream from the freezer for accompaniment.

mmmmmm. cake. creamy chocolate frosting -- almost too sweet but not quite -- contrasting with moist rich golden layers. mmmmmm. cake.

(but never as yummy as cookys)

p.s. this was not birthday cake, just random cake. much like this post.

8.5 million copies in the first printing of Order of the Phoenix. 870 pages long. that's almost 7.5 billion pages of text. not to mention the 200 million copies of the first four installments of harry potter. assuming that there are equal amounts printed, that's about 150 BILLION more pages.

that's a metric buttload of trees.

(props to canada's raincoast books for insisting on using all-recycled paper).