If You Like Boat Shoes...You'll LOVE The Killers

I've been trying to explain to people how awesome The Killers are. Mostly because they are awesome, and no one should be deprived of their awesomeness, but also because it'd be nice to have someone actually interested in what I have to say about them. So far it's an uphill battle.

The other day, my attempts were focused on Carrie, who likes boat shoes. And I told her about this interview a long time ago with Brandon Flowers wearing boat shoes, basically trying to convince her that he is the reason boat shoes are so hot right now; and therefore, she should love The Killers. Sound logic, I know.

A few days later, I sent her a picture of Brandon Flowers and the aforementioned boat shoes. Here's how it goes...

Autocomplete- convenient, in that you don't have to type all the letters; and yet inconvenient, in that it shows you just how crazy you have actually gone.

And now, back to studying (Yes, I'm still blaming this mostly on the Bar Exam...mostly), but before I go...Baby Bflow and his boat shoes...

Congrats, Bflow. You did it, and it only took a decade or so.

Dave Appreciation Post

I asked Carrie and Trish tonight, "What if after the Bar exam, I don't like The Killers anymore?" To which
Carrie said something to the effect of, "I'm sure you'll be fine."

At any rate, in case the unthinkable happens, and this was all a fever dream of stress and insanity...here is a Dave appreciation post.  I just can't get enough Dave lately.

***

"Sometimes it's annoying when I'll be doing a guitar solo and some people would rather watch Brandon drink a bottle of water." - Dave Keuning

From a 2005 NME interview:
Interviewer: "What brand of eyeliner do you use? Have you ever thought of bringing out a Killers brand to sell as merchandise?"
Brandon: (dead pan)  "I use a Sharpie."
Dave:  "Brandon! Now someone will try that and ruin their eyes!"

Always looking out for us...even when we don't watch his guitar solos.

PS. How excited am I about this GIF thing?!???!

Smells Like Home

I just went outside to throw the garbage out.  It smells like rain. That happens here about twice a year. It seems funny. In a city that gets so much rain, it almost never smells like it. It's one of the things I miss most about home; the smell of rain. That dry dust, creosote-spiced, heated-asphalt smell of rain.

Maybe because it's been awhile since it's rained; maybe because this crazy, warm summer has baked our fair city into a dried out, husk of itself. Whatever the reason, it's lovely.

And it's just like it happens in Arizona. It clearly hasn't rained at my house, but it's coming. You can smell it on the wind just like you can smell the summer monsoon, moving through the desert, heading your way.

Hey! Look at what I learned to do!

Clarification: I learned to embed GIFs not make GIFs.

Which means you get to enjoy my favorite thing on the internet...
Courtesy of this person.

I could watch this all day. Forever.
Please don't ask me how studying is going.

I guess I like Ricky Gervais now

Yeah, fuck you.

Family Friend

Holy shit. Perhaps I'm late to the party but these sound waves are blowing my mind hole.



Have a listen (bonus "hidden track" at 5:36)...
or as Britta would say,

"Feast your ear tongues on these memory pops."

Also, I think Britta might be my spirit animal.

Stoner by John Williams (not the "composer")

I'm posting a few older reviews that used to be on Goodreads...trying to fill out my virtual bookshelves a little. With a complete lack of humility, I'll tell you that my staff review has made it tough to keep this book in stock at work. I'm even accumulating a bit of a book review following, though a coworker says that they're all "old dudes with mustaches."  She's not wrong, which does seem a bit odd.  I wonder how many of my mustachioed followers have read any of the Jane Austen I've suggested.  At any rate, here's a brief plot synopsis since my review gives you none...and no, it's not about a pothead.

William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.

John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.

I should also tell you that this will be my number one read of 2013. I am 100% certain that nothing else will come remotely close. My review below...

***

Give me a moment to dry my eyes. I'm still shedding a tear or two today after finishing this book in the wee hours of this morning. I can't say much beyond what's already been said. So I will describe my experience with it.

About half-way through this book I was exhausted. Partly from turning the pages so quickly, but mostly from the unendurable sadness that is William Stoner's life (though even in my exhaustion, I was entranced). And then I realized that while quiet and melancholy, and with its fair share of villains, Stoner's life isn't sad at all.

It's just life.

And then the book opened up to me, or maybe I opened up to it, and I fell in love. I fell in love with William Stoner and his quiet university life. I fell in love with his sweet-tempered, lifelong friend, and even with his scheming enemies. I fell in love with the succession of events that made up this one man's ordinary life, and I fell in love with the way that life moved me.

I can't really explain what it is about this book. Yes; it's well written, filled with living, breathing characters; and perfectly paced. But it's more than that... and I don't have the talent to impress upon you just how beautiful it is. Read the blurbs, and other more eloquent reviewers. More importantly, read the book.

Can't stop listening to this

This remix is trance inducing, and calming, and it makes me fly. It's my bar study theme song. 4:51 to the end is the big payoff, but you need those 4 previous minutes to really appreciate it. Magic. Just hit play, and go about your day.

 

 You're welcome.

It's Probably Just Gas

Tonight, I spent the better part of an hour researching carbon monoxide poisoning and symptoms before realizing I'm just really, really tired.  I also thought the cats were succumbing until I remembered that they are cats, and prone to lying about in a nearly comatose stupor.

The Blue Book

Two books finished in one week.  Phew.  I'm a reading machine.

A.L. Kennedy is an all-time favorite of mine.  Her writing is unlike anyone else out there.  Her story ideas, truly unique.  If you haven't read her, you're not reading the right things.  The Blue Book is great, while not my favorite of hers, it's right up there (Day is my favorite...read it, NOW).

I would tell you a little about it, but that's hard to do without giving too much away, or diminishing it and making it sound much more mundane than it is.  I will say, it takes place on a boat shuttling retirees from Britain to America, present dayish.  The novel follows the strangely misplaced, younger passengers Beth and mysterious Arthur, and explores the murky past between them...all this happening while Beth's better half suffers from a fiendish bout of sea sickness.  Throw in some psychic mediums, dead mothers, and disappointing fathers along the way, and you have what turns out to be a surprisingly touching, humorous, and heartbreaking novel.  (UGH, would someone please give me a better word for heartbreaking, blech).

Other things about this book:
-The book talks to you, the reader, all while acknowledging that it is a book.
-Beth is the perfect protagonist, because she is you and she is me in all her messed up, selfish, glory.
-And the page numbers skip around in a strange dance that is both exhilarating and unsettling (I never knew how important it was for me to have page numbers in the right order).

I know none of this makes much sense, and it might not make much sense for you even after you read the book.  For me, it didn't seem to matter.  How tidy and sensical (just invented that word, opposite of nonsensical...duh) are our lives anyway?

A.L. Kennedy is not a gentle writer.  She's raw, cunning, and crude.  Most of her books are complete mindfucks, and this one is no exception.  But her acrobatic writing will leave you dizzy and breathless and hooked.  She's phenomenal, like I said, if you haven't read her, you're not reading the right things.

And you're a reader- clearly- here you are reading your book, which is what it was made for.  It loves when you look, wakes when you look, and then it listens and it speaks.  It was built to welcome your attention and reciprocate with this: the sound it lifts inside you.  It gives you the signs for the shapes of the names of the thoughts in your mouth and in your mind and this is where they sing, here at the point where you both meet.

Which is where you might imagine, might even elicit, the tremble of paper, that unmistakable flinch.  It moves for you, your book, and it will always show you all it can.

Just take a moment, read that out loud, and tell me you didn't get shivers.  And that's just from the first page!

Maybe it's a Colbert Blog

I'm headed to New York City in a little over a month.  And in the midst of the horror (not an exaggeration) that is studying for the Bar Exam, a sense of giddiness creeps in from time to time.  I feel like I'm finally taking the tiniest of baby steps towards being the great traveler I always knew I should be.

That occasional giddiness is constantly overcome by the immense gratitude I have for great, dear friends who are making it all happen.  I am so blessed...and you will be too if you ever run into any legal trouble (you all know who you are).

This trip was meant to be a post-graduation celebration, and when I was deciding where to go, I had three main ideas: a trip to Orlando and Harry Potter World, a week in San Diego to learn to surf, or New York City to see Stephen Colbert.  New York City it is...and Stephen Colbert it will be.  It's happening, people. Show tickets are in hand, plans are made, now all I need is the perfect question to pose during the pre-show (out-of-character!) question and answer session.

This is the year I see all my favorite, famous people.  Well, it's really just been Stephen and The Killers, but come on, who else is there?

I'll be honest, I wrote this post because of the clip below.  While I am so excited to see all the history and awesomeness that is New York, this clip reminds me why I wanted to go in the first place.  I wanted to go so I could see someone I admire.  You all know how I gush and make googly-eyes at...well, Stephen and The Killers (among others), but beyond all that gushing and googly-eyeing is plain admiration and respect.  With Stephen Colbert, it's his intelligence, humor, and humanity that I particularly admire...and it's all here in this clip.  I only just watched it tonight.  I knew it was there, but I also knew it would be sad...and it is, but so very sweet and human.  I can't wait to see him.