Song of the Day: "C'mere" by Interpol

So I've had a number of things occur in the last few weeks. Things I haven't processed. Allow me to be oblique, until I get up my nerve. (Allow me to use the word oblique for the first time. It sounds pretentious but know I am using it with great trepidation.)

Anyhow, here is a brief of interesting occurrences this month.

1) I had writing collaboration drama. Outcome to be determined later.

2) I interviewed the drummer for Interpol and am planning to write an interview story, due soon for a publication. I have avoided plunging in because they are INTERPOL for God's sake. I want to do them justice. And every song I listen to by them, old and new, blows my mind. No, more like it shakes the gelatin of my brain, like something jiggling a jello mold.

"C'mere" is currently a masterpiece in my mind, and I'm playing it on repeat because of its cozy melancholy. It sounds like it's a gloomy, overcast day with lots of thunder, but you're seated near a fire. . .And, in a few minutes, like you're walking on a wet moor, soon to succumb to fever, a la Jane Austin protagonist Marianne Dashwood. Not quite as hysterical as Cathy in Wuthering Heights, due to the emotional detachment of the vocalist despite the near sentimentality of his words.

In "Slow Hands," Paul Banks of Interpol makes uncontrolled love sound both overwhelming and clinical:

"I submit my incentive is romance/I watch the pole dance of the stars. We rejoice because the hurting is is so painless from the distance of passing stars."

Shades of the beautiful hopelessness of Joy Division, but then the song gets downright unabashedly, Tom Cruise jumping on the couch, romantic. It would sound like passion, had the earlier sentences not been presented like a court case.

"And I am married to your charms and grace. We just go crazy like the good old days. You make me want to pick up a guitar, and celebrate the myriad ways that I love you."

By the way, there is something hot about guys that use words like myriad.

Part II of this blog will appear when I am less overwrought and prone to verbal risks and linguistic mania.

In conclusion, I must be getting happy again because I'm starting to fangirl more over bands I like.

So yeah, here's that song. . .

<< previous song  

                                                                             >> next song

Paleo manners. . .

Forget the Paleo Diet. I'm going to write a book on Paleo Etiquette. It's a very direct way of dealing with people and involves non-verbal cues like grunting.

Up all night. . .

I was up all night dreaming
Of what I should wear
When I go careening
On rides at the fair




--Sarah Torribio

Country crock. . .

I like a good crockpot, because there's nothing more idiot proof and there is such a good flavor when it gets its simmer on. I've totally improvised many a soup. Thrown in some French onion soup as a base along with pieces of chicken, cut-up potatoes--sweet, regular Idaho, russet, whatever--fresh vegetables and a package of frozen mixed vegetables. I've topped it off with red wine.

For seasoning, I've taken basil from my garden and even mint, or just experimented with the spice cabinet. Salt and pepper to taste. Give it a couple hours and, inevitably, it is delicious.

I've even got a Pinterest board called "What a crock." I've got 149 dishes pinned, from homemade macaroni to fajitas to Indian food to, gasp!, bread. Here's the board if you want to peruse recipes like "Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala."

Now I haven't cooked a damn thing off this board, but I've decided this is my year. I'm going to be a cooking mom. Vegetarian dishes, dishes the whole family will love, which smuggle vegetables into hungry bellies, comfort food and crockpot berry cobbler. It's not that I'm only going to use a slow cooker. But I believe this timeworn, make-sure-you-put-it-on-your-wedding-registry will be the epicenter of my culinary peregrinations.

Holy shit! It's crockpot smothered beef burritos!

Now, before you say, "Oh yeah, I bet you're going to cook all of that stuff. In your dreams. And why don't you pin some more things you're never gonna make". . . (I'm not sure why the hypothetical you is so mean!) I want to tell you something. I believe I am on my way.

Because this last Friday, I turned into an adult. I know, I'm 40. It should have happened a long time ago. Long story short, it didn't. But anyway, my daughter turned one and I decided I would have something very low-key and season-appropriate called "an open house." From 6 to 9 p.m., any number of people were invited to stop on by and admire my baby, present her with some belated frankincense and myrrh, and sample some goodies.

Savannah and her daddy on Halloween

Due to my not getting the word out until the last-minute and because everyone was holiday-partied out, only my immediate family and Brian's came to pay homage to Savannah's first year on earth. But I prepared enough food for two-dozen people. What I am most proud of is that I made really good homemade chili and really good spinach artichoke dip in two dual slow cookers. It was a truly housewifely achievement. Next thing you know, I'll be making ambrosia and bundt cakes and jello in molds.

It was tasty as all get out. And I discovered that, given a lot of leftover spinach artichoke dip, you can get pretty creative. It tastes good on bagels. It tastes good on a slice of pizza. It tastes good on pita chips. And I bet it would taste really good on a baked potato. (I think I'll try this tomorrow.) There seems to be a theme here. It's called carb-on-carb action and it's hot!

Of course, my next step will be to start my diet, and I'm not sure how that will dovetail with my going down the crockpot rabbit hole. (I think you can even ferment your own beer in a crockpot. Perhaps that's a good way to earn a crock potbelly.)

But really, it is a true achievement, the kind that tells me, I'm not just faking it. Oh no, I'm making it.

Here's the recipe I used, from the Six Sisters Stuff website.

Want to join me in further reconnaissance into adulthood? Last one in's a rotten egg!

You handsome brute! . . .

Feeling sexy because I just "liked" Robert Mitchum on Facebook. It's the sheer orneriness of the guy that gets me: "People think I have an interesting walk. Hell, I'm just trying to hold my gut in." Oh yeah, and the charisma. As my late Great-grandmother Marcia used to say, "Dimple in chin, devil within."

Everybody's got a laughing place. . .

Okay, done with the goth. Onward and upward, mood. . 

P.S. I interviewed Scotty McCreery for the Reno Gazette's Best Bets entrainment section a couple of months ago, and he was A-dorable.

I wear black on the outside. . .

I've got a miserable cold and am feeling sorry for myself. Time to get my goth on.