A Devotchka kind of week(End)

Well its been one of those weeks when one good thing just rolls right into another. After seeing Devotchka on Wednesday we decided to see Little Miss Sunshine this evenning. Lets just put it this way, and here, I'm borrowing Ilya's words, but good writing wins out over special effects any day of the week. Mix that with good acting and you have a sure fire winner every single time. Little Miss Sunshine is a gem of a film, awkward, humorous, just poignant enough to balance the sugar with a dash of salt, quirky and filled with moments, so many moments, linked throughout a continuim of good writing and acting. We laughed out loud... You should see it, really. While on the road with this disturbed Hoover family, enjoy the scenery and the sounds of Devotchka who scored the film.

Oh yeah... just to make the pot a littl emore sweet, I won the trivia contest at the Balboa theatre before the film started and scored a free ticket. Not too shabby I'd say. I love independant theatres, one of only 5 left in SF. So if you live in SF, support your local and independant movie palaces as they're truly a dying bread.

And for those of you that were curious, the question was: "Alan Arkin, the grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine starred in a film, about 10 years ago, a genre film, sci-fi, with Jude Law, what was that film?" My hand shot up before the question was fully asked... and the answer is here

-L

Useless worries #4

The how and why of longing
is understanding that retail
therapuetics leave one tied down.
There's too much to carry out
or in, or into something smaller
more frugal, lets face it, cheaper.
This isn't our father's generation
when you could work your whole entire,
life for one company and reap
pensions and timex quartz stop watches.
Sometimes there's too much to move
too much space required to store,
all the very small bad days
and where will the shelves go
to stack up and up and up
the knick knack patty whack of
this spree, or that sprained knee.
Sometimes, there's more to care for
and less to carry. Sometimes there's
too much for the maybe of tomorrow,
what might happen when I'm no longer,
tied to this profession or that,
and I do as JFK suggested, for my
country? Not in this day and age son,
I just want to travel and live on
goverment doles in third world holes.
There'll be too much for public storage,
too many boxes aof unread books
added to the collection, every good
library needs this and that, and
you can't imagine being without
one more tea-lighted evenning,
they come in bags,
fifty to a hundred.

Another fantastic Devotchka show on the books!

Devotchka is the soundtrack I want to live in at times. Or, maybe, in planning my own wake, I want everyone to swoon under Tom's magic violin spell. Yeah, that's it... or just let Nick Urata croon his heart out and whistle my tune in an almost Enio Mariccon spaghetti western style. Then again, it could be the mariachi balads and the fact that every other song is about the loss to come and you remember back to when you were 16 and listening to The Cure's pictures of you seemed like the only tonic for the heart ache you didn't have but needed to feel human. But you're older now, more mature, sophisticated, saavy and read reviews and think yo have discerning taste, and you need a new elixir for modernity's modern pangs, and so you turn to something that melts the ashes of mariachi, tango, flamenco, klezmer and well crafted rock into a beautiful, beautiful malady.... Yeah, you should go out and listen to Devotchka, you won't regret it. If you need a little more urging, I'm giving you a review which I think is spot on...



From Filter Magazine- "Devotchka may be the best band in America youve never heard of. This fascinating little quartet from Denver Colorado has made a wistful, beautifully-arranged something that isnt really an indie rock record, and isnt really a jazz record, and isnt really a mariachi/norteno (or Eastern European) folk record. Its the album you put on when you want to wallow, when you want to brood, when you want to shut your windows and close your blinds and lose yourself in the wistful tragedy of love and loss and hope and nostalgia that bubbles to the surface in all of your darker, finer moments. And though it could easily be the soundtrack to One Hundred Years of Solitude (what, with all the horns and guitars and the crooning Nick Urata), its actually more spiritually related to the darker and finer moments of, say, Modest Mouse. (Night on the Sun the-world-is-ending-right-here-in-this-guitar-delay Modest Mouse, not the newly-minted disco Mouse). It makes you think. It makes you long. It makes you dream. And if you can listen to the aching troubador ballad Dearly Departed without feeling the suffocating sensation of tearing flesh from bone that accompanies any true loss, then you havent loved and you havent lost and you shouldnt kid yourself that your better for it." -Mikel Jolet 11/19/04

Useless Worries #3

It's always the beginning
that makes me hesitate, before
actually starting something,
perhaps more than comitment
I'd venture to make not knowing,
what's to come or more importantly
what more than likely won't
come around, if you can stop
the inevitable from happening,
this is called the flip side
of the coin of procrastination,
which must be defined as simply
the fear that prevents a body
from starting something,
like all those books
ith their uncut pages,
the show piece that isn't
being fully used to best
and highest usage just might,
make the dog's coat shine
a little less, or maybe
if I start cleaning too much
I'll never quite make it
as clean as if it were
professionaly done, see here
I'm not an expert in all things
vertically speaking, my capacity
is in the many beginnings
here and there, left still
and quite unfinished in order
to be there when I get around
to finding myself ready to accept
an aptitude less novel and
properly more specific.

Giving the bird

I simply don't get what the attraction is? I know, I just had my 31st birthday and I'm like a year old, a year crotchetier, a year closer to death but I never understood the fascination with flipping off those taking a picture. I mean you see everyone from the most innocent looking suburban girl next door, to the farmer's daughter to someone's grandma? Why is it we're so bloody fascinated with being caught on film with an extended finger saying fuck you taking the picture and whoever else looks at this photo? I simply don't get it... someone help me out.




































































enough for now...