Destroyer's Rubies

This is one of those records I bought on a whim and kind of gave up on. It wasn't bad, but it just didn't engage me at the time. But man it snuck back up on me. I was making a mix tape for Kelley and there was a song I thought she would like on this record ("Your Blood"). I started listening to it again and haven't stopped.

Substitutions

I was out of town on business for a few days this week. I've been out of town a lot lately. I feel sorry for Cairo, who has to sit around the apartment for days on end so I cooked up a toy that I thought she would enjoy. I tied an aspirin bottle (her favorite toy) to an elastic string (her second favorite) and suspended it from a step ladder (her thirty-fifth favorite). A meager gesture to be sure, but at least it would give her something to do, right? I got back a few hours ago and she hasn't come to sit on my lap once. All she does is play with that damn thing. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm feeling resentful towards an inanimate object. I always knew that I am easily replaceable, but seriously, this is too much.

Fox in the Snow

There is frozen ice falling from the goddamn sky! What the fuck is going on here?!

Kitties!

Holiday

Ah, the familiar trip to Florida for the holiday. I just made this trip and am not looking forward to another 16 hour trip in 3 days. Oh well. I love my family and its totally worth it, but its just such a long drive for me. Stupid airline tickets being too expensive for my poor ass. My poor ass.
I thought about taking Cairo (so she could be reunited with her brother) but decided against it, since the only thing worse than a 16 hour car trip is having a live animal in the car. The mind reels and I don't hate myself that much. Plus I don't know if cats even care about their siblings.

Shelves... at last

I made them black and white because I despair at the color of my walls. That's right. Despair.

Ms. Arulpragasam

Halloween + M.I.A. =
A winning combination.

It was so nice to get out again. Especially at such a fun concert. I'm in trouble now though. I was already crushing on Ms. Arulpragasam, but now its at full-scale infatuation.

I don't know what I expected, but I was surprised that the crowd (as can be seen in the picture to the left) was overwhelmingly white. Is M.I.A. too weird to be attractive to mainstream hip-hop? Is she only appealing to white indie-rock kids? Any record that samples/references The Modern Lovers, New Order, the Pixies, and the Clash has got to have some pull on that audience. Also, I noticed that pitchfork is all about her while the only outright negative review I've seen of Kala was in VIBE, so maybe. The crowd was distinctly indie-rock, but the show was... something else. A perfect compliment to her music, as crazy as it is. Genre-bending and reverse cultural colonialism have never sounded so good - it gives me hope that globalization is not such a bad thing after all. To some people it sounds like a big mess, but she has got methods to her madnesses.

So, M.I.A.'s not exactly mainstream, but she is smart and awesome and talented*. That's why people love her and its enough.

























*And popular, the show was sold out.