Everything that Happens Will Happen Today Happens Today

Listen: This is not a music blog (I think I might have mentioned that before), but I felt like I had an opportunity to both spread minimal awareness of David Byrne and Brian Eno's new album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today while at the same time being the only person on the internet with enough wit to come up with a blog entry title whose cleverness is proportional to its time-sensitive/short-lived accuracy and relevence. That being done, I will go back to putting together that information about typewriters which was requested and promised sometime over a year ago, and assembling some information regarding Ohio, a place from which I've recently returned.

Do You Think it is Okay to Like Brian Eno?

And I'm not talking about the Brian Eno that produces Talking Heads records and sometimes makes an album about taking a mountain by strategy, no no. I'm talking about the Brian Eno that just sort of gets in front of some kind of music making device like a simple piano or control board and makes background noise for a body to listen to when that body is having conniptions. Because I'm not sure it's okay to like this Brian Eno, but the fact of the matter is that I really, really do when the Time Calls For It.

Listen: as a person who is pretty prone to panicking and worrying about things that don't make an enormous amount of sense I can tell you that the sensation is god awful at best. One time, about nineteen months ago I found myself in a situation that got me real worked up, worked up in a looking-desperately-for-the-exits kind of way. Eventually I did find the exit (it was a door), and I made my way back to where I needed to be. Somehow, through logic that now escapes me, I got it into my brain that I needed to listen to Music for Airports. I don't know how I knew about this album, and I'm also not sure that I'm allowed to call it that. Maybe I'd heard it at some point before that time 19 months ago, but I wouldn't testify to the fact. Regardless, that is what I listened to, and back then, much like now, I found it remarkably soothing.

Listen: I bring this up only because in the past couple of days I have been getting myself awful worried about something that, now, in the light of greater preparedness and a healthy dose of Ambient 1: Music For Airports seems a lot less threatening and terrible than it did about eight hours ago. In conclusion I am making this album the first-line treatment method for when I get too upset, okay? So now you know.

Also, if you were wondering, the second-line treatment for when I get too upset is putting this on a screen and myself in front of that screen. Thank you.

Two Forty-Three A.M.

Just now a car drove past The Place. I could hear the techno music the car's stereo was playing loud and clear despite the fact that I am one floor up and one wall removed from the street. I can only assume all the doors and windows of the car were up and closed, as it is 29 degrees outside. This means that anyone in the car is experiencing a terrible genre of music at a tremendous volume, two factors that when combined present a serious danger to the listener's ears and numerous theoretical dangers to regions of their brain and soul. Do you think that man can create circumstances that even God finds intolerable?

What is The Terrible Thing I Did Today?

I can’t even believe that I did what I did today. Today I used Unix in one of its hateful CLI forms. I haven’t had to deal with Unix in A While, the last time being a couple years ago when I would wake up and go to bed without eating between the two (this wasn’t Unix’s fault, but my bi-weekly exposure to it for a 3 month stretch didn’t help). Despite the problems of the past lying behind me where they belong, I knew, deep down in my heart of hearts, that I was going to have to deal with Unix again. This morning when I woke up to the sound of two different alarms and one person (me) swearing I could feel, either by intuition or by delicate sense organs not yet understood by modern science, that today would be different from yesterday and the many yesterdays that preceded it. Today would be a day of having to know a very small amount about Unix, and probably eating less than is recommended by dieticians, friends, relatives, and the like.

Was I right? I was right. About everything. I hope I don't have days like This One for a While.

Here is Some Information about That Record Player

Just over half an hour ago I received a transmission from my good friend regarding the existence and location of an Electric Phonograph on the sidewalk in front of a house on a street less than thirty yards from The Place. I took the initiative and went on a salvage mission, returning with the piece of equipment. Here:



There are two things that I find particularly interesting about this record player/am/fm radio. The first is that all of the cords coming out from the player (both speaker channels and the power cord) have been cut, obviously by scissors that can deal with fairly serious quantities of wire. What's strange is the fact that the amputated sections of the player's wiring, including the plug of the power cord, were in the box along with the item itself. It's as though someone deliberately maimed the machine before setting it out for pedestrians of the area.

The second detail I'm particularly enthralled with is the fact that the warning on the back of the record player seems to feature the epitaph for Stephin Merrit's heart.



Now you know

What Came in the Mail Today?

Here is what came in the mail today:






Looks like it's time for me to put up posters for John Vanderslice's fall '07 tour. I remember the last time this happened, life was pretty good. Although they didn't give me as many posters this time - only 8. I guess they do not trust me to do a very good job, which is entirely reasonable. Maybe if I pretend to put them all up they'll send me more? More on this and typewriters in the future.