I have not been able to stop listening to Cut Copy‘s 2011 album Zonoscope. A couple weekends ago a friend invited me on a hike, so me and three other guys drove an hour or so outside the city and through a small Pennsylvania town which is all ripped up by fracking. We found a dirt road that led to some railroad tracks, and we hiked along the tracks until we got to a bridge over a river. The bridge was just like that bridge in the movie Stand by Me (well, except smaller and less dramatic): basically just tracks, with spaces between the ties. If a train comes, nowhere to run but the other side. Well after we crossed that bridge and went a ways there was another one just like it! Super fun even though my friend Bill was freaking out. We came to a swimming hole in a creek, beautiful flowing water over tiered rocks, and baked in the beautiful weather. Across the creek the rednecks pulled up in their four-wheelers, drinking beer and liquor from flasks. I felt fear – but just a little bit. Fear and lust are so easily confused, after all.

It was a wonderful adventure and in the passenger seat as we drove home, I felt singular. I put on some music of Bill’s – Cut Copy’s Zonoscope, only because I liked the album cover and I’d heard a bit of one of their songs and it sounded good. “Excellent choice,” Bill said as it kicked into gear, this zooming synth song that instantly took me away. We turned it up real loud and listened all the way through. When I got home I downloaded it and I listened to it nonstop for four days. I’m fond of the last song, which is fifteen minutes long and drones and rides just how I like it.

I love reading criticism and press. The first review of Zonoscope that I looked up was Pitchfork’s, and here’s what Tom Briehan had to say in the first paragraph: Somewhere in the world, someone is probably road-tripping to a swimming hole with this album playing… [link] Weird, right?

I’m hard at work on the novel (yes, novel) version of My Sister’s Boyfriend Joey. My other priority is to format 691 Suburban Dr (the sequel to 428 College St) and get it on Amazon. I want to work on that this weekend and I will let you know when it’s up.

Oh, and I hired Johnny Murdoc to not only design a cover for ’691′, but to redesign the cover for the ebook version of ’428′ so they would be of a piece. Here it is:

I saw Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti at Altar Bar on Wednesday. I debated over whether I was going to go to the show; of course I debate over leaving the house in general. I guess introversion is my blessing and my curse. I need it in order to get work done, but it often hinders me from getting outside – both from my apartment and from my head. But I made it out this time, and good thing: they brought it. “They” being both Ariel Pink and his monolith/bedrock of a band. I got a little loose beforehand, first in an alleyway then in a bar, then I walked across the street to the venue. I thought I might know somebody there but I didn’t know a soul. The under-21 section was fun to watch and gave me flashbacks to going to shows when I was in high school. When I was eighteen I saw Radiohead on the OK Computer tour (at Metropol), which was definitely one of the best shows I’ve ever been to.

This one might also rank in my top ten. Ariel Pink makes odd, patchworky songs that seem like they shouldn’t work but often do. He’s an iconoclast. He stood in front of the stage fiddling with an effects board (or something). He couldn’t find his tambourine but when someone finally handed it to him he didn’t play it all that much. Though off-kilter he’s clearly a frontman, 100%, the band incredibly nimble but nonetheless careening over his goofy, beautiful songs. He’s made album upon album of the things, God only knows when I’d ever get the time to listen to all of them. But the wonderful thing was that every song they played sounded good, sounded like a song I’d want to hear more of (haven’t been able to find a setlist, where’s the internet when you need it?). And the songs I did know sounded more like anthems than I ever could have imagined. I wanted to raise my hands in the air so I did, sometimes. I also danced a bunch, which not a lot of people did but this cool gay guy and his gal pal were gettin down right in front of me so I felt like I was in good company.

At least I think he was gay. Who can tell these days! I made extended eye contact with this very attractive dude. Dark hair, beard, thick shoulders, nice butt; but nothing more. Also received a few anxious glances from young hip brahs who didn’t have girlfriends. The crowd was so unfortunately sparse. I was possibly the oldest person there besides the band. I guess they hadn’t promoted it well, it almost seemed like a secret. Or maybe nobody knows what to make of Mr. Pink but I think he and his band are brilliant. No real highlights but the last song was a long drone and there’s nothing I love more than a long drone.

I have to say that I think Ariel Pink is pretty sexy. He hides behind his hair a lot. I wanted him to really strut his stuff on stage, to femme it up and flounce like a good rock star should. Alas, that seems to be only in his dreams (were it true I’d be this guy). I’m not complaining. I like introverts.

Speaking of long drones, as I’m writing this post I’m listening to the new Boards of Canada album. I’m only halfway through it but it’s certainly interesting. I’m a big fan, particularly of their last album The Campfire Headphase which came out like eight years ago, and which none of the press/critics currently seem to think is worth much. It’s their most pop album, it’s got this great laid-back vibe and I think they knew exactly what they were going for. This is my favorite BoC song (listen to it, just for ten seconds):

My dream for this new album was that it would be made up entirely of little weird songs like the one above. Obviously that’s only in my dreams and that’s as it should be. I’ve definitely noticed some moments of beauty and weirdness so far, and those are always good things.

This one probably won’t last long. Email me if you need to: bacteriaburger@gmail.com

As I’ve mentioned before, me and some friends have started a queer newsletter/zine for Pittsburgh called QueerBurgher. Here’s the most recent issue.

Hay. The Rainbow Book Fair was great – it’s an awesome event. I sold a bunch of books and some collages and met and talked to a bunch of people. All in all my weekend in NYC was exhausting but totally fulfilling in a mind-boggling sort of way – that’s New York City in a nutshell. On this trip I think I fell a bit more in love with the city than I ever have before. You can see it in the faces of the people on the street – there’s so much life there, so much happening, and people seem engaged, curious and alive to what’s going on around them.

I’ve been utilizing the capabilities of my new smart phone to make field recordings. It is so fun! I used to record things all the time when I was a kid – in fact I still have stacks of audio tapes that I made from when I was nine or ten all the way to when I was a senior in high school. So it’s sort of amazing that this new technology has taken me back to doing something I haven’t done since I was a teenager.

Here are the two best field recordings I made in NYC:
L Train Station 4/14/13
Hanging out in Greenpoint 4/12/13

So come out and see me if you’re around. This Saturday April 13, 2013. Noon-6pm at the Holiday Inn Midtown, 440 W 57th St. More info (but, alas, not a usable promotional image I coulda used to make this post more visually interesting, geesh) here: Rainbow Book Fair

This is an experiment. I was just thinking to myself, I wish some editor would give me an assignment to take one of my older stories and turn it into a novella. Why? It’s easier to justify spending time on something when somebody is expecting something from you, I suppose.

And so, this poll; the idea being that whatever story is chosen I will then expand to novella-length. I have to wonder if I’ll actually go through with it. I suspect that I might. Furthermore, I suspect that it’ll be rewarding.

I hope you will vote, and maybe even take some time to justify your choice in the comments. And, as always, thank you for reading.

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I guess masculinity bores me when it’s not giving me a boner. I hate action movies for the most part. I want to gouge my eyes out when I realize a movie is building toward an epic battle sequence (even worse, when the movie in question is a bastardized version of a classic girly story).

Maybe that’s why I get such a particular thrill when men write stories or make movies primarily about women. I feel like directors do some of their best work when they focus on femininity. Take David Lynch for instance. I am not a fan of Wild at Heart. The violence in it is dumb and obnoxious. The female characterizations are grotesque and uncomfortable. It’s a valid work and has lots to recommend, but it’s not brilliant.

I think it’s meaningful that Lynch’s arguably most groundbreaking work, Mulholland Dr, is the first movie he made that is focused on female protagonists. The whole movie is filled with femmy energy, chock full of vagina symbolism: apartments, purses, boxes, the hidden spaces behind and around and inside things.

And while this is an unpopular opinion, I think Death Proof is Tarantino’s best movie. The pacing is different from any of his other movies. It’s languid and dreamy (when it’s not featuring women getting run down on the highway, that is).

Both of those movies came to mind when I was watching Spring Breakers, particularly Mulholland Dr. “C’mon, it’ll be just like in the movies,” says one of our girls on Mulholland Dr. ”Just act like you’re in a movie,” says one of our spring breakers. Of course, in both instances, we are in the world of movies, but also of fantasies and dreams. Perhaps the best way I can recommend Spring Breakers is to say that I never knew what was coming next – sort of like a dream. That’s not something you can say about many movies: heroes generally prevail, villains are felled, romances consummated. Several times in Spring Breakers, characters pause to recount events that have just happened as if trying to make sense of it themselves. Seemingly important characters up and disappear when they aren’t needed anymore – a choice I found bold and thrilling.

The casting creates its own tension and plot. Everyone is acting and trying on personas, some with more success and authenticity than others. It’s easy to discount the zeitgeisty hot-button youth-culture elements of the movie, but I think they are part of its genius – it makes the movie as much about how it was made as what it’s about. For while movies might just be dreams to us, they are highly constructed things. The way that Spring Breakers is great, and the way it compares to some of the greatest movies, is that it is often about its existence as much as it’s about anything else.