bzz!

i think i had a mosquito in my room tonight. damn itching.

by this time tomorrow i'll be at the airport in copenhagen waiting for my plane to depart and by this time the day after tomorrow i'll probably be sitting at a restaurant, or on the porch, with a glass of wine in my hand, smelling the sweet smell of french summer and the mediterranean sea. how i long for thee.

i'm determined to do as little as possible except lay down, swim, eat, drink, read, take strolls on the beach, take pictures, write postcards, and relax. i may enjoy a little culture, if it comes my way and catches my interest. but no internet - no emails, no blog reading, no information overload. no tv. no must-dos.

this is where i'm going. i know, i don't speak french either. (arrogant, isn't it?) it's on the ocean a bit outside of narbonne, somewhere in-between montpellier and perpignan. wait. need map.


the white line near the bottom is, for those of you who doesn't love maps like i do - obsessively, the spanish border. this whole area of france is called languedoc-roussillon and it's beautiful with castles, mountains and vineyards. and beaches. the wine is tasty, the food is good and the people are, well, french.

so see you in two weeks! oh, and if you want postcards, mail me your address - and fast! need to have them before i leave.

made in china for the masses

more on juliana. after finding the links to my earlier post i stayed at allmusic reading the review for made in china and found myself surprised, happily so, that the reviewer actually liked the album and gave it a 4,5 of 5.

i love the album, really love it - it's raw and honest and exactly what i expected and hoped she would sound like when she didn't have record company-people breathing down her neck. however, when it came out it seemed like the reviewers hated it. (maybe not as severely as i remembered, but still.) pitchfork sure did, gave it 5 of 10 and a review that makes me wonder if said person ever really listened to juliana hatfield at all. i guess i stopped reading the reviews after the first load of we-hate-it.

so i was kind of surprised to read lines such as "[made in china] is terrifically rewarding", cos that's exactly how i feel! it's not very produced (as in not overly produced like so much other music), it doesn't apologize for being ragged and it balances the honest lyrics extremely well so it never becomes pathetic or embarrassing (which i guess some critics disagree with me about).

i wouldn't trust anyone other than juliana to make this kind of record. yet at the same time it feels as if your best friend made it, and it's the best thing you've ever heard and you're so proud of her you could burst!

(i know you're curious; you can listen to it on amazon.com.)

it's a mystery how i seem to be something less than myself

juliana's not been lazy with her posts on myspace about her songs.

12. daniel (off of beautiful creature)
13. little pieces (off of become what you are)
14. outsider (off of only everything)

if there's still any of you who has yet to discover the sheer greatness of juliana hatfield, rest assured that i will never give up trying to get you hooked. i'll just keep on nagging about her, so you might as well do it and get it over with right now. there are songs over at her myspace (those she's written about, or at least a few of them), or why not see some of the 90-licious videos?

poll results pt 2

so, all of my four really really cool readers voted the same as i would've on the high fidelity-type poll (post about it here), namely that it's a tie. both what you are like and what you like matters. some things are sacred. great minds think alike.

most importantly, no one thought i was a confused pop culture dork. that's a good thing. it means my readers are confused pop culture dorks as well. the very best kind might i add.

what a good day looks like

eventful day, today. and a good one too, mostly. started out by sleeping in, strangely only till about half past ten, at which i, mildly frustrated, got bored of trying to fall back asleep and got up, and felt non-tired. that's a feeling that i hardly ever have before i've had coffee and breakfast and been up and about for an hour or so. it makes for a good start of a day!

i took care of about half of the annoying bureaucracy that's a bit pressing right now. go me. after doing so i treated myself to a large vanilla latte at my favorite coffee shop. how i love reward systems.

decided on a whim to visit one of our bigger record stores, actually one of the more decent ones, but like record store are nowadays, expensive. haven't been in there for over a year, probably more. it turned out to be an excellent idea! they had a sale, and being as i am i just couldn't resist going through the cds on sale. even though they were placed on the floor underneath the ordinary racks. so there i was, crawling around on the floor looking for cheap good cds, for a good half hour, probably longer. usually i'm quite thorough, but to tell you the truth, my legs fucking hurt being bent like that for so long (i couldn't very well sit on my ass on the floor, now could i?!). thorough or not, i found 7 that was totally worth buying, for the total sweet sum of 207 kr (divide by 6 for dollars, 9,5 for euro).

my findings included the may queens (oh, how i love that robin proper-sheppard and everything he touches), mudhoney, madder rose and nina gordon - you know, from veruca salt? and, guided by voices' last chapter half smiles of the decomposed, which i, so far, am not too impressed by. seems a bit bland. maybe it was a good idea to disband after all. since it's not like mr pollard's been putting his feet up on the table and leaned back much since. he must be one of the most prolific people out there. what is it with ohio anyway?

i also found one - a really good one - for my dear sister. she's turning 25 on 12 july and she already knows she'll get cds from me - she always does - i'm just writing it here to tease her. we have this really neat system going; she buys me books on my birthdays and christmas; and i buy her cds on hers. basically cos i'm a discophile and she's a bibliophile. nice to have a sense of understanding in one's family.

i also finally bought tickets to cat power's show here in july. i would scream that i can't wait and that it's the only thing i'm thinking about right now, if the circumstances were what they usually are, but since i'm leaving for a two week vacation in the south of france on saturday, THAT is what i can't wait for and the only thing i can really think about. cat power has priority no 2. if you know me you should now realize just how much i long for the mediterranean sea. last time cat power was in the vicinity i went to both the show in town and the one in copenhagen the day before. and it was totally worth it.

feel the pain

more dinosaur jr for you; here's a favorite video. enjoy.

dinosaur jr

yesterday i got the delicious piece of news that dinosaur jr was playing a free, secret, concert at the local skate park in town today (thanks madde!). there's some sort of skate tournament going on that i wasn't aware of earlier. the gig was especially nice cos before i had decided not to go see them in copenhagen this evening, since i can't really afford it.

now i can check them off the list of bands i haven't seen live. awesome :)

it's also a nice feeling to have seen lou barlow live twice, with two different bands, in the last month and a half. how about that for 90s retro?

dinosaur jr earlier this afternoon in malmö

newly found

here's some very sweet poppy summer music i just stumbled upon on myspace. they're (she's?) called period and i know no more than what's on there. give it a listen!