Hey, look! An old man is talking!

I've been watching The Simpsons again. It's been awhile, and I feel like I've been reunited with an old flame with whom I spent, like, ten years before things really went south, and now even though he's still farting around and talking big about "finding himself" and making really specific jokes, I'm okay with reminiscing about the good old days.

It's also really weird to be watching it on DVD. I think it's the first time I've watched a whole run of episodes in a non-home-taped format. I'm so used to the first five seconds of a Parlour Ice Cream commercial before whoever was recording hit Pause, you know? The clean digital editing is really jarring.

Back when I lived in Toronto, I had this one epic tape of Simpsons episodes, recorded over a series of summer Saturday afternoons back at home, in preparation for the year ahead, on my own, sans cable. It was an amazing, serendipitous compilation which included two Treehouses of Horror (and one was the Nightmare on Elm Street tribute!), the Christmas episode where Bart steals the video game and nearly ruins Christmas, aaaaaaand the best episode of all time, Lemon of Troy.



God, I wish there were better clips on YouTube, but still, this is pretty good.




Now, let's all watch a few more Simpsons videos.



Reunited, and it feels so good.



That's all I had to report, I think.

Where have all the flowers gone.

1. While I may grouse a whole lot about hating my profession and nearly everyone in it and threatening to leave it all behind to become a reiki practitioner, every once in awhile the universe offers me a little nugget to remind me that you can take the gal out of the library but you definitely can't take the library out of the gal. Like this morning, when the Library of Congress released its annual list of recordings to be preserved for cultural posterity. This year's list is pretty killer: it includes The Band, REM, Loretta Lynn, the original cast recording of Gypsy, battle sounds from Guam, the Staples Singers, and Tupac. Fucking TUPAC, man! How much do I wish I'd been part of that selection committee? Answer: SO much.

2. Hearing Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie alongside someone from Antiflag discussing the state of protest music on the Current this morning reminded me yet again why I love the CBC so damned much.

3. It also reminded me why I love Arlo Gurthrie enough to name my cat after him. I think they share an equally random and whimsical sense of humour. And possibly a snaggletooth.



4. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch Christopher Plummer chew the scenery at Stratford.

5. I don't go to the theatre much, but whenever I do, I wish that someone would LITERALLY chew the scenery, and I hope that someday I see that happen.

6. Are these the thoughts that someone on the eve of her 30th birthday should be having? Probably not, but hopefully yes.

Friday Five.

By this point in the week, it always feels like it's been a long one. Especially when you're still eight hours away from the glorious weekend and your amazing plans to unplug your phone and watch an entire season of Extras while cooking yourself dinner from The Minimalist (Mark Bittman, will you be my roommate?). With that in mind, here's a little something (or a few somethings) to get us all through till five. Till then, if you need me, I'll be taking a lot of coffee breaks, striding down the streets of Kingston wrapped up in a pashmina, trying to look brave.


The Weight--The Band and the Staples Singers.



This is the official song of driving to work on a foggy fall morning. Some days I listen to it three times over. It's a balm for what ails us.

Mutiny, I promise you--The New Pornographers



Actually, the song I've had stuck in my head all week (and most weeks) is Unguided but I could only find totally crappy versions online. Also, I am a sucker for a bad CanRock video. And I am pretty sure that's the chick from Flight of the Conchords in there. WHAT!

Part of the Union--Strawbs



Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Labour politics will apparently be meltdown fodder for the next two years, friends. Incidentally, this is what came up when I was trying to find a version of Union Maid I could actually embed. I love happy accidents of internetism. Who the hell is Strawbs and where did they come from?

Sailor's Eyes--Joel Plaskett



This week I missed a Plaskett show. He was playing around the corner from my house, pretty much. Sheer exhaustion and poor footwear choices will do weird things to a girl. Anyway, I've been humming this one with regret all week.

Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You--Dylan



...because Nashville Skyline is the official album of autumn, and this song is the official anthem of figuring out your shit, and coming on home, and spending the night. Not a bad way to sign off.

Six for Kicks.

It's been a long week on Walton Mountain, and I'm not in much of a mood for talking books. Instead I thought I'd celebrate the advent of the much-needed weekend with a little mini-playlist. Fall nostalgia might be my favourite nostalgia of all. Part of me loves the early nights and the frost in the air every morning, the clean-sheets feeling of a fresh start as the seasons change. I've had a lot of good falls, in a lot of good places. Here are the six songs I'll be listening to on my way home from work tomorrow.

The Avalanche--Sufjan Stevens.



Autumn time is Sufjan time for me. I think it's because I first listened to him in the fall, just after moving to Ottawa, wandering around the city by myself and feeling pretty lost. That feeling never subsided, and neither did the wistful sense I get whenever I listen to him. Of note: I am totally okay with this budget YouTube video which gives me an excuse to stare at his motionless little hipster boy frame for three solid minutes, in the name of art.


Uniform Grey--Sarah Harmer.



She makes all my playlists these days. Ever since I moved to Kingston I moon about the streets listening to You Were Here over and over again, wondering if this is the corner from Around This Corner and where The Hideout is (actually, that one I'm pretty sure I know). I'm going to offer the Sarah Harmer Kingston Reality Tour someday. It'll be like the Peterman Reality Tour but with better bagels.

Handshake Drugs--Wilco.



This one's all Vancouver. My dear Kitsilano roommate was responsible for Wilco shifting in my mind from The Band My Boyfriend Used to Play When We'd Have Dumb Fights to The Band I Cannot Get Through The Day Without. This song reminds me of riding the bus up to the UBC campus and wondering exactly what anyone wanted me to be.


Never Had Nobody Like You--M. Ward.



Because, you know, the weekend's gotta come sometime. And when Friday rolls around all I want to do is dance. M. Ward's full of sweet little love songs that just get your hips swaying. This song's pretty great for easing on into the weekend. A delicate rockout. The "To Be With You" of our generation, if you will.



What's your favourite Mr. Big album? Mine is Japandemonium. And while we're talking about places, this one takes me right back to awkward slow dances in Hamilton, Ontario. Oh god, middle school was the greatest.

Singer Songwriter--Okkervil River.



Let's fucking party, guys.

...From suicide to salvation in six songs. Not bad.

quasi-intellectual.

Being smart is hard. Especially when you find yourself constantly resisting your intelligence.

Case in point:

The new Alice Munro book came in for me this weekend at work. I got super excited about it and chatted like a literary fangirl with all my coworkers about how I couldn't wait to go home and read it and one time my mom saw her on a plane and isn't she frigging classy for pulling herself out of the running for the Giller? I came home all ready for some subtle, poetic fiction-reading.

...And then, I spent the rest of the evening watching episodes of Young and the Restless online, and getting depressed at how confused and disoriented that show makes me now. Gone are the days when you could tune in once every three months and find the plot had only progressed slightly past where it was when you and your grandma used to watch it together. Now it's all Silver Chipmunks and kidnapping and peanut allergies.

...And then, I googled pictures of Lady Gaga and tried yet again to figure out why I think she is so cool. Me liking her makes the least sense than anything, ever.



SERIOUSLY, WHAT GIVES?

Anyway, it's bedtime and I've got some old Sweet Valley High paperbacks to flip through before I pass out, just to round out this incredibly stimulating evening. Watch this video, if you know what's good for you. (Thanks, Harold.)

Born in a bad time.

Lately I've been reading books that leave me incredibly pissed off that I wasn't born at a different time. Case in several points:

1959: The Year Everything Changed, by Fred Caplan. I'm not sure what I find so appealing about living through the early stages of the Cold War. Maybe it's just the numerous references to the RAND corporation that make me envious. Fun fact: I learned about this book from a paparazzi photo of Renee Zellweger in which she was using it to shade her face from the camera's glare.

The Road To Woodstock, by Michael Lang. I could probably talk about this book all damned day, because as many of you know, I am a big fucking hippie and moving to Kingston has only made me embrace this aspect of my personality moreso than ever before. This book is full of amazing anecdotes about the festival and the days and months leading up to it and also includes full set lists and a timeline of performances. Every little side story seems like the best one yet, and I'd like to synopsize them all for you, but I'll leave it with this: I really, really wish I could have seen Pete Townshend smack Abbie Hoffman in the face with a guitar when he tried to commandeer The Who's set.

Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, by Dervla Murphy. Dervla Murphy started cycling the world on her own in the 1960s, and she is TOUGH. Within the first twenty pages she gets attacked by wolves and totally fends them off with a pistol she's carrying in her saddlebag. She goes on to get in a fight on a bus in Afghanistan and basically tear things up across the globe, and she writes about these crazy things that happen to her on the trail with typical formal UK prose, and it is awesome fun to read. The copy I borrowed from the library is clearly an early edition, and has the publication values of an original Bobbsey Twins book, all cute line drawings of a lady on her bike passing camels and following a dotted line across a pre-USSR map of the mid-eastern world. I'm so glad no one threw this one out of the collection before I got to it.

Unrelated: I was listening to Cross Country Checkup on my drive back to Kingston today. It was all about the purported end of the economic crisis, and every caller had a sometimes absurd, always poignant anecdote that called bullshit on the notion that we're all on the mend. All that talk of mills shutting down left me with this song stuck in my head.



I have such a schoolgirl crush on early 70s Rick Danko.

I'm a wrecking ball, in a summer dress.

I've been reading a little this week, but mostly I've been watching Veronica Mars (thanks Alice), lusting after fictional characters therein, and wondering why I have a 16 gb iPod that's practically maxed out when really the only songs I need on it are Midnight Train to Georgia, This Flight Tonight, and this.



Incidentally, part of the reason I love Midnight Train to Georgia so much is the episode of 30 Rock that ends with the whole cast doing an epic version of this song. (This episode is also the one where Liz gets dumped by the co-op board and she drunk dials them while drinking white wine on her treadmill--a scene I found depressingly relatable). Also, this short version starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr., which aired on American Idol last year, and is arguably American Idol's greatest contribution to western culture.



Further incidentally, I've always thought that Nazareth's version of This Flight Tonight is the most successful cover song of all time, if only because you would totally not know it was a cover if you'd never heard Joni's version. THEIR INTERPRETATION IS JUST THAT PERFECT.



And finally, this song is probably the one I get stuck in my head more than any other.