• {EDITORIAL NOTE: This one's going to be a little longer than usual.
"Blog," as a word, is some kind of abbreviated portmanteau that, I think, comes as close to describing the thing itself as any other term in this dumbed-down and ridiculous "parlance of our times." Or at least the term "blog" suggests how I use my blog. (Yikes. "My blog." Try to say that out loud in earnest and you'll marvel at how easy it is to repulse yourself.)
My blog, typically, is a space for me to be glib, and to keep in some kind of loose contact with an irregular and far-flung group of friends, and - from time to time - to direct The Reader's attention to some extraordinary or entertaining aspect of our popular culture. The guiding principle behind Curtains For You, Kid seems to always be: "Keep it light." Or, just as often: "Keep it."
But, occasionally, I think, this blog could serve as a space for me to showcase material for The Reader that reflects my actual feelings about a personal event.
The other day I was asked to speak at the funeral ceremony for my beloved and recently departed grandmother. What follows is the text, slightly altered, from the speech that I gave. - TDH}
• I think that Eleanor, "Freckles," my grandmother, was given a gift - life - by God.
I think that Gramma Freckles herself would be much more qualified to make that statement than I am, but I don’t think that that makes it any less true.
Eleanor was given the gift of life by God, and in return she gave Him the gift of a life gracefully and remarkably lived.
At this time I feel that this metaphor bears extension. It is easy for me to imagine Freckles' life as the vessel for the present that she gave to her Lord, in the same way that a little felt box might contain a lovely necklace.
Into her life, into this parcel that she dedicated herself to preparing for God, Gramma Freckles packed the unceasing care and support of those around her. In addition, she packed into her life her loving relationship with her husband Gilbert, to whom she was married for some sixty years, and with whom she raised three exceptional children.
Perhaps most importantly, the present Freckles gave to God was packed to overflowing with her own energy and vitality that seemed, I think to all of us here, to be limitless.
When Eleanor passed away, she did so as peacefully and as gracefully and as elegantly as she had lived her life. And although I was initially overcome with the emotions that accompany the loss of a loved one, it didn't take long for me to consider the idea that the way she passed was, in some way, the wrapping and the ribbon she put on her own personal gift to God.
Gramma lived her life as fully and considerately as anyone ever had. If she could talk to us today, I think that she would remind us all that there is nothing to be sorry about. We ought to take this time to celebrate the life of Eleanor, and to continue to be inspired by her life to make our own lives into the kind of beautiful and exquisite experience that she had.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Two Little Drawings
• I've been, um. Yeah. Kind of like. You know how when you just want to not think about anything for a while and you end up making dumb little sketch joints for a couple hours? And then even though they're not that good or nothin' you Photoshop 'em anyway because whatever. I probably would have liked for them to be saying things. I'm looking for a resource of a bunch of speech balloons somewhere. So. Holler at me. More later. Probably, technically, today.
• (I don't know how many of you have a flickr page or whatever. But after you upload some pictures and describe them, you click this button that says "Save This Batch." I would like to be able to customize it to say "Save This Biatch." Ns;js.)
Monday, December 24, 2007
• I'd like to start out with two, like, editorial notes. First of all, even though it is Christmas Eve and I seem to be posting to this blog with increasing irregularity, I'm not necessarily implying that this will in fact be the last post of 2007. (Like you care.) Secondly, I kind of can't stand year-end lists. But fucking everybody seems to make one, or at least every magazine. And I think I'd like to work for one of them one day. So. I figure I might as well just start producing year-ending list-type text.
• While I consider The Darjeeling Limited to be, on the strength of its visuals alone, the Best Movie of the Year, and while I thought at the time that watching that last Pirates movie on super-packed opening night with my former neighbor while she drank sneaked-in beers and seriously talked through the whole thing was unusually awkward, it was, in retrospect, the best experience I had watching a movie in 2007. (That last sentence, though, might qualify for Longest Sentence I Wrote This Year.)
• Best Blog Based Entirely On Another Blog of 2007: Wear Palettes, which takes the photos from The Sartorialist and reduces them to color palettes. In order to, I don't know, better track, like, color trends. Or something.
• As far as the Best Album of the Year is concerned, I think it's only fair to call it what it is: the Best Record I Heard All Year. Because there were a lot of records I just didn't listen to this year - even ones that it seems like I would have listened to. I think that this is the case because (a) there's no place to buy new CD's anymore, (b) the Good Shit Catalog died, and (c) the last time I was hip was in October of 2002.
So. All that said, for me it comes down to Da Drought 3 and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. I'm not just trying to exercise some, like, one-rap-record-one-rock-record white guy blogger diplomacy here. Or maybe, on some level, I am. But I think I'm just really into extremely hardworking musicians who manage to sound completely effortless and cool all the time.
UPDATE: You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that Rock Band might be the Album of the Year.
• Fuck this. End-of-year lists are exhausting. And they only ever talk about general crap. Like the Best Book. I don't even remember reading any books this year. But I'm sure I must have. I'm just saying: I've never read a magazine where some guy lists, like, his Proudest Personal Achievement.
• Proudest Personal Acehievement of 2007: (fucking finally) graduating from college.
• Hardest-Won Photograph I Took This Year:
this one.
• I feel that the Year's Biggest Disappointment For Me, Personally was and continues to be the Raichile's unceasing negligence of what really ought to be the greatest blog ever.
• I just looked at the clock. It is now 4:31 in the a.m. I guess I could keep typing until January, but at some point enough's enough.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
The Reign of Blank-Blank has Begun
• Let's begin at the beginning, then, hey? Okay. So. American Gangster came out, and I was and remain embonered about the whole thing. The only thing that I thought was disappointing about it, really, was Lil Wayne's verse on "Hello Brooklyn 2.0." You know. Because it's not all east coast -sounding and super lyrical. But then I listened to it a bunch of times, and I decided that it's one of the best parts of the album. Wayne's part on it sounds like a Delta Blues singer performing with the New Power Generation. Or, you know, like Prince with a drawl. Also, the track so reinvigorated my love for "B-Boy Bouillabaisse" that I made this little thing. (What do you call these things? "Mashups?" What a dumb term.)
• Can't find anything to buy for Thee Famous Person - who doesn't "believe in" Christmas but still wants presents? If I was you, I'd try here.
• I converted pounds to dollars and, at press time, it'll cost me $39.62 apiece. But still. Don't think I'm not going to make the next Devil Himself mixtape (tentatively titled "Protected Everywhere") available on these bitches.
• Tadanori Yokoo? More like Radanori Yokoo.
• So. I've had this one post going for a couple of days now, because I saved it, and decided I would finish it at some point down the road. I decided today that today was the day, though, just so I could finish it with the new shit. (What? Yes.)
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Two-Fer Tuesday
• I figured it'd be a good idea if I broke this up into two posts, for the sake of. I don't know. Continuity? Something? I just personally never like reading long-ass text-heavy blogs. I tend to tune out. I suspect that you might as well.
• The other day I put a Mogwai song up here. Mogwai's one of those bands, man. Where, like, I've never really considered myself a capital-f Fan, but, like. I really like them. (I'm the same way about Busta Rhymes.) I guess somebody synced up one of their songs with an Iggy Pop interview and put the shit on YouTube. I say to that person: Thanks, buddy!
• The new Vanity Fair - I know - has an article concerning the suicides of East Village/LA artists Jeremy Blake and Theresa Duncan. I certainly don't mean any disrespect, but the first thing that occurred to me was the late Mr. Blake's series of really great haircuts. Here's an embed of Blake's "Sodium Fox." (Because, you know, apparently at least seven of you watch these things. (There's also a video of Duncan's "The History of Glamour" on the Vanity Fair site, but it's like forty minutes long so, of course, I haven't watched it yet.))
• Ike Turner died. But you knew that already, probably. (Just trying to stick with the dead celebrity theme for this installment of CFY,K. I guess.)
For Personal Use
• As for the delay , I am easily distracted. So.
• I spent the better part of last week in New York City, staying and working with Old Raver, trying to get my country-boy-makes-good on. I think that if I had tried to post before now, you all would have had to wade through a bunch of environmentalist rhetoric and links to helpful tips for green living.
• I will say that Raven Simone, for her part, has exceeded all reasonable expectations in terms of "Good Looking Out." I think that I might formally discontinue my own personal usage of the term "Ravenize" in honor of this. Maybe.
• Also: I managed to get to the big city just in time to give the kid Shamanzo a proper Sarchichan send-off. I think he's in China now. Or somewhere. (A hallmark of Sarchichans, I think, is their innate ability to to arrange their lives in such a way as to be able to just drop everything and go at a moment's notice.) Safe travels, Monsieur Rabbitt.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Sleep Till Four Or Whatever
• First things first:
Dear Viva Voce,
I don't want to sound like a dick. Because I'm flattered. Really. But, um. The next time you make a song about me, you could go a little easier on the jangle-pop and go for more of a "brooding menace" kind of vibe.
Cheers,
TDH
• Okay. And that said, I think that the wintertime is the time to chill the fuck out 'cause it's boring.
That's "I Do Have Weapons" by Mogwai, by the way.
• So. Um. About that. I got this poll here. There's a whole, long-winded thought process behind its inclusion, but I'll spare you the particulars.
• It's a little funny when a band with the kind of cultural cachet that The White Stripes commands makes a video for a cover song. What's weird to me is how often they, in particular, do that. But whatever. Their new video, for "Conquest," originally written by Corky Robbins and performed by Patti Page, is hilarious and awesome.
• Now. Again. YouTube embeds. I'm not sure if they're worth it. The kid needs feedback.
• You know what's funny? Married to the Sea.
