the actual articulation of whatever

A public library is a little voyeuristic, a little romantic and intrinsically cinematic.

A personal library is different. Cleaning out an old house and discovering the book cases full of knick-knacks, old bottles and torn up books is something like reading an old note, a sincere will passing on who the owner was rather than what they owned. The note is vague to begin with and entire stretches of ink have been worn out by the air but important clues are still there. Each word underlined in a particularly worn hardcover and each little postcard used as a bookmark (“I’ll wait for you, my love” written above a tropical beach scene, skillfully painted in water colors by the author) is an hour or three spent wondering what it all meant.

And then the phone rings and you rush down two flights of creaky stairs, wondering the entire time how one person lived alone for so many years in this cavernous house. You miss the call but the answering machine records an old friend wanting to catch up, inviting the library’s owner to a small get-together. You pick up the phone and start dialing slowly, getting ready to inform the caller that Rose has died and does she know who the artist was who loved Rose, the one who was waiting for her on a beach in Florida? Why did Rose stay in New York City, alone for decades, in a cold decayed house that might have stood on the opposite end of existence?

On Sunday, January 9th, 1905, Tsar Nicholas II ordered trooops to fire on a peaceful procession of workers demonstrating in St. Petersburg, unleashing a storm of strikes, mutinies, violent uprisings, and brutal reprisals that raged across Russia for well over a year. Known collectively as the Revolution of 1905, these upheavals transformed the political landscape and set the stage for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War that followed. Bloody Sunday also marked an important watershed for Russian graphic artists. With the momentary collapse of censorship, over 300 different satirical magazines were published during the Revolution of 1905, more than had seen the light of day in Russia during the entire nineteenth century. Most of them survived for only a few numbers before the censors caught up. Yet the ouput was impressive all the same. Rushing to fill the expressive void, artists and writers captured the events and personalities of the revolution with biting satire and aesthetic sophistication. While styles and subject matter varied, artists often chose to depict nightmarish scenes of bloodshed and repression, drawing on images of the macabre and the mystical that had already been in vogue in Symbolist circles across Europe at the turn of the century.

via yale’s library

Do you understand what I’m saying, Sir? (This is also a concert I’d like to go to).

I never knew this could happen to me. “Silent Shout” The Knife

This is the concert I’d like to see most right now.

Neon Indian – Deadbeat Summer from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.

via my old kentucky blog

I guess I’m floating says that Josh Ritter has a new album due out in a few months.

I saw this blurb in an ad for a novel today:

“Moonie Madison is the literary descendant of the scrappy, sensitive, warm-blooded women of Kate Chopin and Willa Cather, a true Midwestern heroine. You will root for her, and she will not let you down.”
Kate Christensen on The Melting Season

I don’t want to read a book where there is not the slightest chance of being let down. I don’t think I am alone in this.

If you enjoy 80’s cinematography, grainy but flashy colors and gold chains, you will enjoy this music video. If not, you will just have to make do with a good song- Julian Casablancas “11th Dimension”.

(via the modern age)

The band Summer Camp, ostensibly British but otherwise a bit of a mystery, is playing at SXSW this year. Bloggers and journalists alike seem to think this band is on the precipice. I don’t know how the mechanics of popularity work but I do love their songs.

Finally, there’s Summer Camp, who came armed with nothing but a MySpace page and a couple of spectacularly lovely pop songs. Suddenly everyone cottoned on that they were very good, and the one scrap of information they did provide – that they were Swedish – might not have been true. So here’s some proper journalism for you: we found out who they are, and talked about their secret identities. Which, it turns out, were an accident.

“It wasn’t deliberate,” said one member, who nonetheless wished to stay anonymous. “We made the MySpace in two minutes and did it like that in case somebody we knew stumbled on it and laughed at us.”

Summer Camp – Ghost Train by Themblueeyes

Summer Camp – Was It Worth It by MusicSnobbery

Brooklyn’s own Keepaway. “Yellow Wings”.

how i love mistakes in the english language made in foreign accents. my french friend told me her little dog ‘beat’ her. actually he bit her. one of my favorite mistakes ever was when i was in brazil and someone said ‘headcake’ to describe a headache. priceless. sometimes that is just how my head feels under the sun.

-look back in anger

Speaking of the sun, when will it come back? I’m always cold and it gets dark out very early. Someone tell the sun that New York needs you.